Karma
by nonsequiturvy
Summary: For Regina, night and day it's always this: "Make the fire, fix the breakfast, wash the dishes, do the mopping." She goes around in circles feeling very, very dizzy until, one day, someone makes her stop. The story of a maid, a man and her fairy godmother. An Outlaw Queen Cinderella AU.
1. Part I

The servant boy is staring at her again.

Jaws clenched in irritation, Regina scrubs a little more furiously at the rags in her basin, splattering murky soap water across her bare arms and the side of one cheek. She drags an elbow over her face to dry it, glowering all the while. No matter where her chores have taken her this morning, the damn fool hasn't seemed far behind, which she wouldn't have minded so much if he had least bothered to make himself useful while staring so intently at her.

But every time she throws him a pointed glare he merely returns it with a smirk, never lifting a single finger. He had leaned casually against a marble column while she mopped every dust-lined crevice of the ballroom floor, had loitered near the entrance to the kitchens as she polished all the fine china that was only brought out for very, _very _special occasions.

Such an occasion is upon the castle now, which had been a flurry of activity for several weeks, and only further magnified within the last two days, into a hustle and bustle of last-minute preparations for the arrival of the marquis' eminent son. To Regina's knowledge, he hasn't been home in years—the last she can vaguely remember of it, she'd been just a girl—and as far as she's concerned he can very well stay put where he is. It's not like the castle is going to clean itself, and it appears as though she's the only person competent enough to do it.

Regina pauses in her glowering and makes the mistake of catching the man's eye once more. He would be handsome if he weren't being such a pain in her ass, she sighs regretfully, and almost as though to prove her point, he chooses that moment to wink at her. She's seconds away from wiping that smug grin off his face with a few choice words when the pitter-pattering of Mrs. Lucas draws near, scattering her thoughts.

"Wash the dishes, do the mopping," the head housekeeper is muttering to herself, "then the sweeping, and the—oh, Regina, there you are." She rifles through a long list of items that have yet to be crossed off. "I have some additional demands from the marchioness with regards to the linens—"

"Perfect timing," Regina interrupts, wringing water from a towel. "Can you please give them to that useless man over there so he has something else to do other than to just stand around like a damn coatrack?"

Mrs. Lucas swings her gaze toward the direction Regina's pointing in, then back around and from side to side with apparent confusion; the wall he had been leaning on moments before (one arm slung leisurely over the other, a grin playing at his lips) is bare, and the man is nowhere to be seen. Regina grits her teeth, somehow even more irritated with him now that he's gone.

"Who?" Mrs. Lucas asks in her typical brusque fashion, looking twice as exasperated as usual, as though Regina has been wasting her time on purpose.

"Nobody," she grumbles in response, drying her hands so the ink doesn't bleed through to the other side of the parchment as she accepts it from Mrs. Lucas. "Clearly nobody."

.

.

.

Regina retreats to her quarters for a brief moment to catch her breath before tackling all the one million other tasks that await her. If she can somehow manage to accomplish everything by suppertime she may be able to sneak off to the stables just after dusk, but the list she's holding only seems to double in length the longer she stares at it.

She senses his eyes on her back before she's even turned and has to stifle a groan.

"What are you staring at?" she asks tartly, hands defiant on her hips, and he holds up both of his, the picture of innocence save for that infuriating smile, and the foot he's placed rather boldly across the threshold of the door.

"Forgive me, milady," he begins, his voice deep yet boyish, rough around the edges yet musical at the same time, and she shivers as the sound scratches not so unpleasantly at her nerves.

"I am no lady," Regina retorts, feeling like her body has just betrayed her. "And you, _sir_, are standing in my way. What is it that you want?" She folds her arms across her chest, scowling, acutely aware of the unkempt state of her makeshift bed on the floor behind her—blankets in disarray, books strewn open where her pillow should be, yellowed at the edges and falling apart at the spines, the stub of a candle she'd jammed into a rusty metal bowl tilted sideways despite her repeated attempts to coax it upright—and she hates how he can see it all, hates how exposed it makes her feel. "How did you even find me?"

"You're not terribly hard to track," he shrugs, with an unmistakable twinkle in his bright blue eyes. "What with the wash water you've trailed halfway across the castle by now."

She's opening her mouth to object (loudly and aggressively) when she realizes this must be his idea of joking with her, and she doesn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he's riled up her temper. "Someone has to keep this place in working order." In fact, she's fairly certain it would fall apart if she didn't.

"Ah, right." He's smiling warmly at her again, and she wants to slap the dimples right off his aggravatingly handsome face. They feel like an intrusion somehow, disturbing her safe place with strange and unwelcome thoughts. "For the pride and joy of his family to return home at last."

God. As if she needed reminding.

She tries to muster up a "Mhmm" as noncommittally as possible, but there must be something about the stiffness of her posture or the permanence of her scowl, because he's raising an eyebrow at her, looking a combination of curious and amused.

"You don't sound terribly pleased about it," he remarks casually.

As a matter of fact, Regina has heard plenty about this prodigal son, and nothing that she finds to be a particularly compelling account of his character. She'd catch snippets of praise from his doting mother at mealtimes: "Top marks in his class," the woman would simper to a visiting duke as Regina set down a platter of cold-cut meats and hard-boiled eggs—"on an extraordinary journey of self-discovery across the world"—"oh but if only he could settle down and have someone take care of _him _for a change"—"so brave and focused and committed to principle"—"_just _like his mother in every way"—which, if that last part were to be believed, did not reflect advantageously on the son.

(And then, the only time the marchioness had addressed Regina directly, touching her primly on the wrist as she refilled their goblets with wine: "Do be a dear and make sure his rooms will have a constant fire going, are heavily stocked with fresh linens and blankets. A horrid draft is coming, and I'm afraid my son won't be up for such inclemency of weather. He is _most_ sensitive to the touch of cold in that way, just like his mother." Regina had had a good laugh about it on her way back to the kitchens, picturing this frail, feeble thing, blown entirely out of all realistic proportions in the loving eyes of his mother, delicate as a twig and just as easily swept away by the lightest of the northern winds.)

"I'm sure he's lovely," she says now with a reasonably straight face.

A chuckle. "And I'm sure he'd be quite delighted to hear firsthand what you truly think of him."

Regina balks at that, suddenly very conscientious of the fact that though she's said very little to this man, he seems to know too much already. She scrutinizes him more carefully than she had bothered to earlier, her gaze narrowing at the freshly laundered look about his clothes—which, though clearly plain and modest, are of a fabric she does not recognize. She begins to wonder for the first time just who exactly he is, and how he has managed to escape her attention until today.

"Robin, milady," he answers the unspoken question in her dark, dubious eyes as he mock-bows, "at your service."

"I'm not sure that clarifies anything," she tells him stoutly.

He grins, teeth catching his bottom lip, and her heart does a traitorous flip-flop in her chest. "I arrived with my lord just this morning. I'm his personal manservant. Valet, if you will."

"Oh," is all she can say. Then, as the implication dawns on her, "he's here? But—he wasn't to arrive until tomorrow!" _Idiot_, she curses herself frantically, back already aching at the thought of the lashes she's sure to receive tonight if the marchioness knows she's dallied too long with this ridiculous man. She doesn't even realize the sheet of parchment is now a crumpled ruin in her fist until he—this Robin character—is prying it gently from her white-knuckled fingers.

His smile softens now. "Let's see what we can do about this, then, shall we?"

.

.

.

Despite her protestations, he makes a sharp left outside her door and begins walking purposefully off down the corridor; and because he's now holding Mrs. Lucas' precious to-do list hostage, Regina has no choice but to follow.

"Milady," he interrupts sternly when she makes a grab for the paper in his hand, insisting that she can take care of it all herself, _thank you very much_, "it is on my account that you've fallen behind. Please, let me help. Now—" and he looks questioningly at the suits of armor lining the hallway he has accidentally led them to, "I'm guessing this is not the quickest way to the parlor?"

And because he's right, it _is_ his fault, she has him do all the heavy lifting as she dusts under crimson chaises and velvet ottomans, even lets him hoist her up by the waist so she can reach the cobwebs decorating the corners of the chimneypieces. When his hand lingers on her back even after her feet are firmly back on the ground, she swats it off, but she can't seem to get rid of the warmth his palm has left there, and it spreads treacherously up her spine into the base of her neck, coloring her cheeks. It certainly doesn't help matters when she notices that he seems just as incapable of tearing his eyes away from her up close as he had been from afar; and now that it's harder to avoid it, she finds herself pausing a second too long when her eyes meet his, noting the baby flecks of hazel amidst the blue before she forces herself to look away.

To his credit, he works diligently by her side, without stirring up more trouble than he's worth. She has to admit, rather begrudgingly, that he does not prove as useless as she originally took him to be, though she'd rather die than see the smug look on his face were she to say it out loud.

"You never did tell me why you refuse to leave me alone," she finally comments well into the afternoon, hefting the basket of apples more securely to her side as he leaps elegantly down onto the grass, another sack full of lush red fruit slung casually across his shoulder. The sun has started its descent, throwing warm shades of rusty orange over the orchards she has tended to since she first arrived at the castle as a young girl. Apart from her bed and her books, this is the only other place she has ever felt safe in her solitude (excepting the occasional thief—she recalls one boy in particular, when she was still but a child herself, who had been obnoxiously persistent, sneaking an apple a day until she had lost all patience and pelted one at him, hitting him square in eye; he'd made himself scarce after that). The quiet rustling of the leaves, the crisp fragrance of ripening fruit, are all the company she desires, and yet she finds that she doesn't mind this, sharing it with someone else, with him.

Robin smiles now, teasing, "Perhaps I simply enjoy the view," and the husky lilt in his voice tells her he's not talking of the blossoms or the sunset. She rolls her eyes, turning away before he can detect the flush blooming over her cheeks.

He wrestles the basket from her arms, pointedly ignoring her when she objects, and strides jauntily off, in the exact opposite direction of the castle.

"Where do you think you're going?" she's spouting out incredulously even as she follows.

"I believe this concludes our obligations to that infernal list," he responds cheerfully, winking at her as she grabs it from under his arm for verification. To her immense surprise and relief, he's right, though she can't quell the niggling feeling that something seems to be missing from it.

"I should still go prepare for supper," she says haltingly, can't help but marvel at his absurdly lackadaisical approach to the whole notion of waiting on royalty, hand and foot, when the only person he seems committed to waiting on is…well, her. "And I'm sure his lord has things you'll need to tend to before—"

"He can fend for himself a little while longer," Robin dismisses as the stables come into view, and her spirits take an unexpected leap at the sight. "The lad's not as utterly incapable as you seem to think."

"I said no such thing," she counters defensively, but he's no longer listening as he rummages into the knapsack for an apple, tossing it her way.

"Here, this should tide you over," and he takes a generous bite from one of his own.

"I didn't mean supper for _me_," Regina huffs impatiently, thinking of the permanently pinched look of disdain on the marchioness' face every time she lays her meals out in front of her.

Robin wedges his apple between his teeth for a moment, freeing up a hand to heave the barn door open. "Do you ride?" he asks once he's motioned for her to pass through and taken another bite.

Regina relishes the familiar scent of hay and horses, the soft whinnying from within the stalls, before forcing herself to answer, "No," suddenly very self-conscious and unsure of herself—two things she'd been unaccustomed to feeling until this man had strolled into her life, wreaking havoc with his eyes, his voice, his smirk. "My…my father would've taught me, but he passed away when I was very young." And now, apparently, he's inspiring her to confess things she's never breathed to another living soul, not even Mrs. Lucas. Wonderful.

She feels his startled stare fall on her and turns purposely away from it, fingering the apple in her hand before offering it to the gray spotted Shetland clomping his hooves directly to her left. The pony devours it in a single bite and she rubs his muzzle, stalling.

"I'm sorry," Robin says finally from behind her, a gravelly texture to his voice now. "I…can't say I know what that kind of loss feels like. And I am very sorry you had to find out."

She tilts her head to the side, gaze dropping down to the dirt floor before rising back up to peek at him over her shoulder. He's looking at her (well, when isn't he?), with such tenderness in his eyes and in the gentle furrow of his brow, that she has to swallow and avert her gaze once more.

"And your mother?" he's inquiringly softly. "Where is she now?"

"She's the one who sold me to the marquis," Regina replies, her words clipped at the edges, and he catches on to the finality in her tone, doesn't press her any further.

Longing for something to distract her from the dull ache that's settled into her chest, her gaze falls on the stall tucked away into the far corner of the stables, which had been empty the night previously. Now there stands a beautiful white mare, with a long, silky mane to match that glides up into the air as she tosses her head with an inviting neigh.

"Oh," Regina utters softly, and she hears Robin chuckle beside her.

"Come, I'll introduce you to Shadowfax," and he's steering her forward with a palm on the small of her back. She doesn't shove him off this time. "We rescued this one from an abusive master during our travels. She takes a bit to warm up to you, but if you—" And then he's chuckling again when the mare bumps her muzzle eagerly into Regina's hand.

"She's not used to being cooped up all day," he tells her, innocently enough, but the suggestion in his eyes is clear.

"That's really a terrible idea," Regina tells him, frowning exasperatedly when he unhooks a saddle from the wall anyway.

"Or it could be a really excellent one," he argues, and her answering protest sounds feeble even to her own ears as Shadowfax begins nudging a warm, wet nose into the crook of her arm.

"Easy, darling," Robin's murmuring to her as he situates the saddle around her middle, runs a comforting hand through her glossy mane, "this is the lady's first time riding. Let's be gentle on her."

"You're incorrigible," Regina says, her half-resigned sigh jolted into one of surprise when warm hands grip her firmly at the waist and hoist her up.

"Perhaps," he agrees as he jumps into the saddle behind her, clucking his tongue, and Shadowfax takes off without warning through the open door, trot quickening into a gallop as Regina grips the horn of the saddle for dear life. Then Robin's whispering into ear, "It's all right, I've got you," the words tickling her skin, and she relaxes into his embrace, feeling terrified yet somehow safe in a way that she's never known, not by her own accord, but in the arms of someone else.

And despite the three lashes she receives later that evening for being unable to explain her absence at suppertime (not that the marchioness listens anyway, letting out a bored yawn as the whip cracks down with brutal force), the memory of his chest firm against her back, the arm he tightened around her middle as the wind blew her hair into a glorious tangle and they flew, flew through the air—the kiss he pressed to her knuckles when they parted, the look in his eyes as he promised they would meet again soon—makes it all worth it.

It's not until well into the night, when she's lying gingerly on her belly while Mrs. Lucas applies a cooling salve into the raw wounds on her back, that she realizes he'd never even asked for her name.

.

.

.

The fanfare the following morning is a blaring spectacle of trumpets, pomp, circumstance. All subjects of the land—from rambunctious families of modestly dressed villagers, to the more primly behaved, splendidly clothed children of barons and viscounts alike—have gathered in the coronation hall to officially welcome home the marquis' beloved son. Regina weaves delicately in between restless limbs to keep the banquet tables properly laden with various fruits, cheeses and goblets of wine, all the while keeping an eye out for Robin should he appear. This is ridiculous, she chastises herself every time she catches a glimpse of someone of the right build, with a similar profile, and the foolish hope that swells in her heart is quickly crushed when it's never him.

The violins join in as the trumpets pick up the rhythm, announcing the arrival of the marquis and his wife. Regina steps back from the tables to blend in with the hushed crowd, not altogether thrilled at the prospect of seeing the marchioness again. Then there's a delighted noise from somewhere to her right, and a heavy murmuring spreads throughout the hall as elbows nudge and fingers point at the resplendent figure making his way down the center of the room.

She can't see his face, but the rest of him is clad in a finely woven, deep crimson tunic with a vest of gold brocade, and the sight temporarily dazzles her, until he turns, and she lets out a gasp that's muffled by the ever-growing excitement that surrounds her.

It's Robin.

_A little overdressed for the occasion_, she smirks with a slight shake of her head as she cranes it now to look behind him for this mysterious son. Honestly, she's surprised they involved Robin in this procession at all—but she supposes if they have been traveling side-by-side for years, they're probably quite close, practically brothers, maybe—

But the only people she sees standing behind him are the outskirts of the crowd as they form a tight circle, closing off the marble columned doorway to the coronation hall.

_That can't be right_, Regina thinks, _I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this_, even as a gnawing pit settles deep into her stomach.

Her mouth drops open as an elderly man steps forward, kneeling in front of Robin. "My Lord," the villager begins, but whatever words that happen to follow are muted by the dull roar of her heart pounding in her ears.

His _what_?

Robin is chuckling, bending forward to persuade the man back onto his feet, as the pit in her stomach expands like a cancer and a tidal wave of embarrassment floods through the rest of her body. She recalls all the menial tasks she had put him up to the day before—how he had done them all without a single complaint, or any indication of how unaccustomed he actually was to such labor—how he had held her to keep from falling as they flew, how he looked at her and made her feel as though she were the only thing that mattered.

Bile rises up in her throat, hot and acidic. Had that all just been an act too? A passing fancy of his, a diversion to occupy an otherwise dull afternoon as he awaited this absurd parade, found fun novel ways of defying his mother by dallying with a servant girl?

She feels like she's going to be ill.

No wonder he'd never asked her name. He hadn't cared to know.

The thought of how her pulse had quickened with the kiss he dropped onto her hand and the hope he'd expressed of seeing her again soon—an empty promise, she knows it to be now, true enough but devoid of all meaning—it positively sickens her. Her hands feel cold, clammy, fumbling at the edge of the nearest table for purchase as she turns to run, she doesn't know where, as long as she is anywhere but here. Her sweaty palms catch against the cloth, dragging it with her, and tureens of food fall to the floor in a resounding clatter, loud enough that heads start to turn despite the general racketeer of the room, but Regina is already disappearing into the crowd.

She thinks she hears someone call out her name, but she can't be certain.

The atrium is blessedly silent save for the echoing of her frantic footsteps on the marble staircase. Still reeling from her stupidity—oh how he must have laughed and laughed at her expense when the clock struck midnight and her dream turned out to be nothing but a nightmare—her eyes burn with unshed tears, and a cold fury sets the nerves in her raw and tender back aflame—she's halfway to the top when a new revelation brings her to a breathless, shuddering halt.

Of course. She knew something had been missing from that list.

She'd forgotten to light that stupid fire in his bedchambers.


	2. Part II

Muttering a litany of words so colorful they would have even the most leathery patrons at the local tavern raising an eyebrow or two, Regina darts up the remainder of the stairs and down two doors on the right as quickly as her trembling legs can carry her. The festive sounds of the townsfolk below, high off royal contact and drunk on mulled wine, travel through the ventilation slits and she sighs, resentful but relieved all the same that the party carries on.

The last thing she needs is for Robin to catch her lurking in his rooms, trying to set something on fire.

Shutting the door behind her, she leans against it as she gulps down a breath or two, waits for her heart rate to slow. There's a stale, dusty quality about the place, by nature of its chronically uninhabited state, devoid of any warmth or particular scent unique to its current occupant. Only the four-poster canopy of vibrant green, resting in the center of the room atop a bearskin rug, looks vaguely personalized, and even then it appears stiff from disuse.

Regina tears her eyes away from the bed. Crouching in front of the chimneypiece, she grabs the flint and steel blade from under the pile of logs. Her fingers shake as she strikes them together, showering the floor with flimsy, pathetic-looking sparks. The knife slips from her grasp and she shudders as the blunt edge slices through the skin of her palm, deep enough to draw blood.

"Damn it," she curses under her breath, tossing the sooty flint aside to examine her wound more closely. She swipes angrily at the bead of sweat that trickles down her temple, scowling when a wayward drop of blood lands on her skirts. This damn dress is the only halfway decent thing she owns—and again, the reminder of how she'd had a certain pair of bright blue eyes in mind as she dressed that morning, a giddy bounce in her step—

She can't cry. She won't cry.

She's finally managed a substantial enough spark to prod at with the brass poker when the doorknob turns with a startling rattle, and she barely has the time to glance up as the wooden panel swings wide open.

He looks just as shocked to see her there as she does him.

Regina's on her feet in an instant, the poker dangling uselessly from her fingertips. "My Lord," she mutters, dipping mechanically into the start of a curtsy, but then he's striding forward and reaching out, halting her with a gentle hand on her elbow.

"Please," he protests. "Robin."

"So that _is_ your name, then?" she asks accusingly.

"It is," he says, head dipping down in affirmation, "Robin. Robin of Locksley." He clears his throat then. "Milady, can you…forgive me for my little masquerade yesterday?"

"It depends," Regina spits out mutinously before she can help it. Her sharp tongue is what has earned her all the scars on her back, until last night; she has only her stupidity to blame for the new ones that will form there. "Are you going to have my head if I don't?"

His lips quirk upward, but then he looks completely serious as he tells her, "I'll gladly have your head if it comes with the rest of you as well."

Regina's cheeks warm as he seems to only just realize what he said, and at least has the decency to look properly chagrined.

"I must beg your forgiveness a third time, I'm afraid. I can't say I'm terribly skilled at this."

"Oh, on the contrary," she disagrees with quiet fury as the fire beside her finally spits and crackles to life, bathing her in its warm light. "I'd say you were quite successful."

He looks confused. "What do you—"

"Because if it was your plan all along to make me feel like an absolute idiot," she continues, fuming, "then yes, congratulations, you're just as talented as your mother has always boasted you to be!"

Robin's brow draws downward and he opens his mouth, to make some lame objection or excuse, no doubt, when she catches sight of her appearance in the looking glass propped up against the wall behind him, and the rather fetching combination of soot, sweat and blood she sees glaring back at her only serves to heighten her indignation.

Well. If he'd had any doubts about whether or not to prolong the charade from yesterday, this will surely have set his head his straight.

"So now that you've had your bit of fun," Regina begins coldly, faltering only the slightest when she detects a glint of—is that anger?—flashing in his eyes, "if you'll excuse me, _My Lord_, I'll be on my way." She makes to storm out, forgetting momentarily that she has yet to let go of the fire poker, when he steps in to block her path.

"Wait—" He appears genuinely flustered now. "Is that what you think this was all about? Me having my _fun_?"

Honestly, Regina seethes, nettled by the absolute earnestness, the pleading, in his eyes; none of this is making any sense to her. "Well if that's not what this is about, then what is it?"

Robin shrugs helplessly. "I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since the first moment I saw you."

"Oh, right, perfect," she scoffs in disbelief, "So you thought you'd go and dress up as a servant? To stoop to my level? To make you, what, more _relatable_ to me?" If that isn't the most egocentric—patronizing—arrogant thing of all things he could possibly do—

"Well," Robin attempts to reason, holding out a placating hand as though this is somehow her fault, as though she's picked an argument about something as perfectly mundane as the weather, "would you have given me the time of day if I had gone as…this?" And he gestures to the restrictive elegance of his attire, the vest already unfastened and tossed carelessly over his shoulder. He drags it off, drops it to the floor now as he steps cautiously toward her.

Perhaps he has a point, but, "I never should have given you the time of _anything_," Regina states heatedly, refusing to budge on principle, and then she's regretting it instantly as he advances to a stop mere inches from her face. Her free hand scrambles backward, palm flattening against the heated stone setting of the chimneypiece to anchor herself in place. Now would be a terrible time to lose her nerve, or her balance, although he's making it that much harder not to as he continues to close what little distance is left between them, and in an attempt to prevent her chest from pressing into his, she finds herself with her back pressed flush against the wall instead.

Robin is regarding her now with that same mesmerized look as before as his hand lifts tentatively up, and when he starts to rub the soot off her cheek with the pad of his thumb, she nearly stops breathing.

"I'm disgusting," she mumbles, his touch so tender against her filthy, ashen skin that it physically pains her, produces an ache inside her chest where her heart has been hammering for a way out.

"On the contrary," he throws her words gently back at her, tilting her chin up with his other hand until her eyes are forced to meet his, blue and electrifying, "you look as stunning as ever."

"What is _wrong_ with you?" she bursts out in a huff of air, exasperated, thrilled and utterly petrified.

"The only thing wrong with me," he replies calmly, "is that I have yet to do what I've been meaning to do since the day we met."

"And what's that," she starts to grouch, but Robin cuts her firmly off as he lowers his lips to hers. Her gasp of surprise is muffled against his mouth, warm and impossibly soft, pressing kiss after kiss into her clumsy, shell-shocked lips as his thumbs caress her cheeks. When she finally parts them with a sigh he lets out a strangled groan, as though it has taken him a considerable amount of effort to hold back until now, and hauls her body flush up to his chest, tongue sliding into her mouth and finding hers, deepening the kiss. The poker slips, clatters to the floor as her hand fists into the fabric of his shirtsleeve, and she feels his fingers do the same at the base of her neck, tugging gently at her hair so he can angle his mouth, move it against hers with a growing sense of desperation.

The sudden recollection of her bleeding hand tears through the foggy euphoria in her mind. She pulls away from him to assess the damage through unfocused eyes, noting the fresh bloodstains on his tunic.

"I'm sorry," she says, aghast, but he couldn't possibly care less about his ruined clothes, is grabbing for her hand instead.

"Why are you bleeding?" he asks, voice rasping slightly, still looking somewhat dazed from their kisses. She manages to stammer something about the fire not starting properly, and her dropping the steel blade, before the words trail off into nothing but air; and then she can only stare in fascination as he brings her hand up to his face, planting a soft kiss into her wounded palm.

She wonders how this man can possibly be real.

"You'd best leave that sort of thing up to me from now on," he tells her gravely, and she's about to retort that that would be the _last _thing she'd ever do, especially given the unprecedented amount of grief she'd been subjected to after doing so yesterday, when he proceeds to kiss the scowl off her lips, warm hand cupping her face, fingers splaying around her neck, and she melts into him despite her best intentions to stay cold, unmoving.

The fire crackles pleasantly as Robin snakes an arm around her waist, pulling her close. His mouth drags across hers languidly, tugging her bottom lip in between his teeth with a gentle bite, then a soothing swipe of his tongue. She luxuriates in his kisses, in the heat that's coming from all sides her, from the hard lines of his chest beneath her fingertips to the flames licking at the logs behind where she stands, spreading through to every nerve ending in her body. Toes curling at the sensation, she feels herself free-falling even as she stands, a heady state of weightlessness and bliss, and his hand travels up the small of her back, supporting her, keeping her upright—

Regina cries out and wrenches away.

"What is it?" Robin gasps, starting forward, but she puts a hand out to stop him. Her back is burning fiercely, she can feel the gashes reopening at the edges where he had unwittingly gripped with too much force.

"I'm sorry," it is his turn to say, completely distraught, "have—have I hurt you?" He looks ill at the very prospect of it.

"I'm—I'm fine," she tells him hurriedly, though he doesn't seem the least bit convinced. "I just—" and she racks her brain for something, anything, to distract him from how she can't stop grimacing, holding her back at an awkward angle, and then she finds it, latches on to the rage she'd felt earlier with more bite than she feels now.

"My Lord," she starts, chin setting stubbornly, and he winces at the term, and at the iciness coating her voice, "I'm not going to be your…your…your token scullery mistress!"

Robin rears back, looking positively stunned. "That's what you think this is? Still?"

"What else am I supposed to think?" she hisses, flinching again when a needle-like pain prickles up and down her back.

He mistakes her discomfort for something else, rubbing his face between his hands in abject frustration. "I can only speak to the fact that ever since I—"

"Yes, you keep saying that," she mutters angrily, trying to hold her spine ramrod straight. "How lucky for me to have captured and retained your attention for more than twenty-four hours." She refuses to be the unwitting damsel to his fickle, besotted, lovesick Romeo.

Robin shakes his head furiously. "Regina—" But he realizes his slip-up the same time she does.

Her wide eyes snap up to his guilty ones, the throbbing pangs in her back temporarily forgotten. "You—what did you just call me?" _He'd never asked for her name._

His answering smile is exceptionally sheepish. "You don't remember me, do you?"

"What," she splutters, thinking he's resorted to speaking nonsense. "_Should_ I?"

"Perhaps this shall jog your memory." She frowns as he steps close to her again, wondering what on earth he's going on about, when he lifts the lock of hair that's fallen across his forehead, and she sees it, near the corner of his eye, traveling up into his brow—it's faint, thin as a paper's edge, but it's there—a scar.

A young boy darts across her mind, emitting peels of laughter as she chases him down on spindly legs that she has yet to grow in to, catches the idiot by surprise with her remarkably deadly aim. She can't recall the details of his face, though she hadn't needed to in order to ensure her apple hit its mark; but then, there are a lot of things about that dark period in her life she'd prefer to abandon from her memory—the same way her mother had abandoned her—had she a choice in the matter.

"You," Regina breathes finally. "You're the thief!"

"Guilty." He grins crookedly at her. "You wouldn't give me the time of day, even back then."

"You idiot," is the only thing she can manage to say as her breathing struggles to return to normal. "You stole my apples." All this time…all those years…

And it turns out she was the one who never knew he existed.

She can't decide whether to be proud, or mortified, or both.

"Well, in my defense," Robin is saying innocently now, "you wouldn't have paid me any attention otherwise." He pauses. "My mother was quite beside herself that day when I couldn't explain to her why my face was bleeding so profusely." He then takes Regina's injured hand into his, trailing a finger alongside the cut that will surely scar. "However, it was worth every moment."

She harrumphs at that. "Really. You think stealing ended up doing you any favors?"

He smiles impishly, eyes full of blue and mischief. "I'd dare say it has now."

Regina would be furious at the audacity of his remark if she didn't secretly agree. When he tentatively draws her to him again, hands falling gently to either side of her hips this time, she lets him, lips parting to welcome his kiss, and maybe she will learn to regret this later, but not now, never now.

.

.

.

Over the course of the next several days, the castle entertains an endless circulation of esteemed guests who have come to pay their respects to Robin of Locksley. Regina finds she has very little time to do much else than cook, clean and cook some more; nothing demonstrates hospitality quite like a constant supply of handpicked fruits, or a pot of freshly brewed tea and a jarful of honey, procured just that morning, to be served at any moment's notice throughout the afternoon.

And yet, somehow, he still devises a way to carve out some of that time to claim as his own, whisking her off mid-sweep into a dark corner where he can kiss her soundly until she shoves him off with a palm to his chest, griping that she still has the entire west wing to clean if he expects her to be able to meet him at the stables later that evening. When she discovers that the chandeliers have been miraculously polished to a blinding gold finish, all the hearths are roaring with a strong fire, and the aroma of maplewood and cinnamon permeates every room, she strongly suspects he has had something to do with it—accuses him of just as much that night as Shadowfax takes them deep into Sherwood Forest, but he only shrugs, silencing her with a smirk and another kiss.

Whenever Regina encounters him during the day, at mealtimes while his mother fusses over and smothers him with loud, adoring comments, or in the castle corridors while he's busy engaging with distant relatives and the like, she says nothing; but he nods, smiles, politely addressing her, "Milady," and the intensity of his gaze follows her all the way down the hall and out of sight, burning through her just as much as it had the first day they—at least officially—met.

On occasion, when she's resting with her back snuggled into his chest, half-asleep on the chaise in his room after hours of conversation trading stories of their childhoods (and the few times they've intersected, though she has no recollection of them, and he can recall the sting of her rejection as vividly as if it were yesterday), she considers telling him the truth about the marks there. They've been healing up quite nicely over the last few weeks, though, and she thinks, well, really, he's better off not knowing anyway. No good can come of it.

.

.

.

"Don't you look pleased as a summertime peach," Mrs. Lucas declares brassily as Regina returns to the kitchens balancing a large pot of vegetable and rabbit stew she's just distributed into all the bowls at the dinner table.

"I don't know what you mean," Regina responds tartly as she sets the pot down, but she can't get rid of the damn smile that's betrayed her to Mrs. Lucas, and the older woman raises a disapproving eyebrow.

"You keep your heart close to where you can see it at all times, you hear?" the housekeeper demands, and Regina's smile finally falters.

"That's what I thought," grumbles Mrs. Lucas, brandishing the rag she's been using to scratch at some food crusted to a plate and then tossing it aside with uncharacteristic vehemence. "You're being careless, child. People have started to talk. Not any people who matter, mind you, but you never—_never_—want people to talk. Nothing good can come of it."

Regina is in the process of heaving a roast duck out of the hot stone pit when the warning made clear in Mrs. Lucas' words fully registers—words she had herself thought, then dismissed, and now she sees what an incredible fool she has been to think she could live in this fairy tale for as long as she has.

"You do know why he's back, don't you?"

Regina can't trust herself to speak, can only shake her head in a silent 'no.'

"The marchioness means to find her son a wife."

Her hand slips, landing on a wayward ember. She jerks away, but not quickly enough; it's too late, the burn has already marked her skin, the pain nearly unbearable, and she bites her tongue to keep from crying.

.

.

.

The Duke of Nottingham, the marchioness' younger brother, comes to visit his beloved nephew the following day. Robin is regaling his uncle with recounts of his travels, and their laughter reverberates throughout the dining hall as Regina comes in with fresh-cut melon, cheese and eggs on a silver tray.

"Well aren't you a darling little thing," the Duke winks at her as she sets it down before him. "Tell me, something, Robin," and he claps him on the back in an excessive show of fraternal pride, "when do you plan on finding yourself a pretty pet such as this one to settle down with?"

Regina's hand trembles as she refills the Duke's goblet, the amber liquid sloshing over the sides and staining the tablecloth. Murmuring an apology, she's lifting her apron to soak up what she can when the marchioness waves her impatiently off the way one might a housefly.

"I've been wondering the same, dear brother," flutters the woman, suddenly in great spirits, "and I think I know _just_ the thing!"

"Do tell, dear sister," the Duke chuckles boisterously as he spears a bit of cantaloupe and tosses it into his mouth, giving it a vigorous chew. Robin, meanwhile, has grown silent.

"A series of _balls_," the marchioness is practically beaming as Regina forces herself to turn back in the direction of the kitchens, her feet graceless and heavy as though her bones have been replaced by lead; she's careful not to meet Robin's eye as she passes, though she detects the sudden tension that lines his shoulders as his mother trills on, "to host all the—_eligible_—pretty young things throughout the kingdom. I've already spoken with Lady Fitzwalter, and she's _most_ thrilled—her daughter, Marian, let me assure you, is of a beauty simply _unparalleled_—"

Their voices grow thinner, tinier with the distance Regina puts between them, until the Duke inquires as to something along the lines of when to anticipate such a joyous occasion, to which the marchioness answers, loudly, "Tonight! The first one shall be held tonight!"

.

.

.

Robin finds her in his bedchambers that afternoon as she's laying out the regalia his mother had fairly demanded she procure for him from the marquis' own private wardrobe, a vintage ensemble of sartorial splendor. ("Sure to catch and hold _every _young lady's eye tonight," she had boasted, and Regina knows this to be true, her heart positively aching at the thought.)

Ignoring her protests, he convinces her to stay a while, _all right, but only for a moment_, she tells him in a tone that leaves no room for him to argue, and he reluctantly agrees.

"What have you done to your hand this time?" he murmurs, caressing the heat blister that has formed on her palm. It lies adjacent to the well-healed scar from the blade that currently rests in his chimneypiece, across from where they sit on the bearskin rug.

"Just a burn," she says, then, as he's lifting her hand to his lips to brush a kiss there, she pulls away. "I should go. You need to get ready."

Robin stands as she does, and her eyes only burn more and more the longer she is unable to look at him. He reaches for her elbow but she twists out of his grasp, ducking her head to hide her tears as she heads for the door.

"Regina," she hears him start behind her, but she's gone.

.

.

.

The sun recedes into the horizon and night descends, black as the vice around her heart. Mrs. Lucas takes pity on her, gives her the evening off—the woman's way of saying "I told you so," Regina thinks darkly, but she expresses her gratitude and retreats to her quarters, thumbing blindly through her books by the remaining light of her candle. She pauses every time she hears a carriage jingle its way up through the castle gates, carrying with it yet another family of suitable nobility, yet another daughter whose delighted laughter upon being greeted at the door by the marquis and his wife tinkles through the crisp night air, filters through Regina's open window.

When she's read the same sentence over and over until her candle finally burns out, Regina hesitates for a moment as she comes to her decision, then tiptoes out of her room. The music that trickles quietly through the corridors grows louder with every step, swelling in its grandeur as she reaches the door and slips inside. She sneaks her way across the upper tier of the balcony overlooking the vast ballroom floor until she's plastered behind a large marble column, drawing one of the velvet curtains over her frame for good measure so only her eyes peek out from behind them.

It's a spectacle of color, blurred in constant motion, as scores of gentlemen proffer their elbows for a dance or two, attempting to occupy the ladies' attentions though they're clearly drawn elsewhere; every woman, each somehow even more beautiful than the next, is craning her neck to locate the son of the marquis, this dashing, young and adventurous Robin of Locksley.

Regina does the same now as she scans the crowd, her heart taking a leap when she sees him standing off to the side by a banquet table, but then it plummets almost instantly. He looks to be in quiet conversation with someone—a stunning creature in an elegant white dress, transcendent in its simplicity, with loose brown curls that frame an exotic face and fall onto slender shoulders of smooth olive skin.

She has no way of knowing for sure, but she's certain all the same, that the woman who smiles dazzlingly at Robin now—with a hand on his forearm as they join the sea of couples and the music slows to a waltz—is her, Marian, and the marchioness was right; she is unparalleled in her beauty, and utterly incapable of looking away from him.

That night, it rains.

.

.

.

"Do be a dear," says the marchioness the following morning, sounding bored as Regina lowers the woman's feet into a basin of steaming hot water, "and run some extra blankets up to Robin's bedchambers. He'll catch a dreadful cold with this change in weather."

Regina takes the steps up two at a time, tripping inelegantly over the folds of cloth that come unraveled in her haste to see him, to know that he will still look at her today the same way he always has, that last night hasn't changed a thing. She reasons that he probably stopped by her room, as he does every night, after the ball concluded, but she must have cried herself into such a deep sleep that she wouldn't have known.

She tells herself she wouldn't have known.

She slows her pace when she reaches the top of the stairs, attempts to brush out the tangled knots of her hair before declaring it a lost cause. Robin's always told her how he rather prefers it that way, wild and free for him to bury his fingers in, but that was before he had swarms of other women all too willing to offer him the same—and then _her_—

No. She can't let her mind wander there and drag her heart along with it. Trying to banish all further thoughts of Marian, she has her knuckles poised to knock on the wooden panel of his door when she hears a cry issuing from within, almost as though someone's in pain. But then the sound takes on an entirely different tenor, melting into a low moan now, one of unmistakable ecstasy.

The blankets tumble to the ground from her arms as she cups her palms over her mouth, stifling her gasp of surprise.

"Mmm," comes a throaty voice, "oh, yes…_yes_! Robin—_don't stop_—"

Regina shakes her head as though to rid it of the sound, clearly she's hallucinating, there's no other explanation—but no, it must be real, because she can feel it lance straight through her heart as sharp as an arrow. The woman is shouting his name now, punctuated by the enthusiastic creak of the bed board, and then his husky, answering groan—Regina whips around, struggling to breathe as she stumbles blindly back the way she came. With one hand still clamped over her mouth, she drags the other pitifully across the wall, and the grief intoxicates her senses, suffocating her as she stumbles around the corner.

She barrels into something hard, nearly knocking her off her feet.

He reaches out gentle hands to steady her at the shoulders, and then he's murmuring, "Well this is a pleasant surprise," his fingers already tucking a stray curl behind her ear, lingering there, and she feels his lips brush against her forehead. Robin. Her eyes flutter shut, breathing still erratic, while her hands curl into his chest, and despite the heat that emanates there, the thump-thump of his heartbeat into her palms, she's half-convinced she's still hallucinating. How is this possible? How is he here?

"To what do I owe the—" but he cuts off when his thumb catches a tear as it slides treacherously out of the corner of one eye. "Regina? Are you all right? You're trembling."

She shakes her head. _No. No, I'm not all right._

"About yesterday," he starts, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry—I shouldn't have let you walk away—"

When she still doesn't respond, he grasps her chin in his hand, tender yet firm. "Regina, what is it?"

But he hears the sounds soon enough, guesses immediately the dark place where her mind has gone, and as his eyes finally register the pile of blankets outside his door, his lips tighten into a thin line and he asks her, voice dangerously low, "Did my mother put you up to this?"

Oh, God.

"She knows," Regina finally speaks, horror in her heart. "Your mother knows."


	3. Part III

She recalls Mrs. Lucas' warning again—_You keep your heart close to where you can see it, you hear?_—as she braces for the blow that will surely crush it. But the reaction she gets from him is not the one she expects.

Robin appears remarkably calmer than she feels as he admits, "Yes, I had assumed as much. It was only a matter of time, whether it be on my terms, or someone else's." His palms cradle either side of her face, thumbs sweeping away the tears that still fall freely there, and they seem to perturb him far more than the revelation about his mother.

"Regina," and her name parts like a vow from his lips, "You have to know that I would never—_ever_—" He looks positively ill at the very idea of it, and then the slow-simmering anger that had been set to a boil finally breaks through to the surface; his entire body practically thrums beneath her fingertips as he growls now, almost to himself, "That infernal woman whom I call a mother—to believe she has the God-given right to interfere with—"

A pause while he calms himself to the point of being able to actually speak in a full sentence, then his voice grows gentle as he addresses her once more. "If you think my mother knowing about us changes in any way how I feel about you, then it is my own fault for not reassuring you sooner." His lips fall to her forehead, his words into a whisper. "Please, don't let her or this ruse trouble you any longer. My mother may have her ways, but I promise she will never find one that stops me from loving you." And he says it as matter-of-factly as though she would find better luck turning the sky from blue to green.

_So that's it, then_, Regina thinks faintly. _I really am hallucinating_.

But he's leaning back and staring at her with that look in his eyes again, the one that says he's never letting her out of his sight, and when a small frown sets into his features she realizes that her response is not the one he'd anticipated either.

"I—I don't understand," is all she can manage to say, and it's the truth.

Robin's frown only deepens. "Did you really think that I would lie with another woman? Or that I had intended to keep you stowed away in a cupboard for the rest of our lives?"

Our lives.

Ours.

"No, of course not," she says, but it sounds more like a question than he's clearly fond of hearing; his brow downturns further, and his hands fall from her face to encircle her wrists when they begin to draw away from his chest. In fact, that's exactly the kind of future she'd been foolish enough to believe _wouldn't_ be theirs—until last night, when she finally understood what fate truly had in store for them. She knew she would be destined to hide behind marble columns; serve food to him and his wife of unparalleled beauty; make their bed for them after they'd gotten very little actual sleep in it the night before. And she would feel her heart break anew every time she did, for as long as she allowed herself to love him.

Because for all his comforting words, his tender reassurances, there's one thing she knows that he doesn't; that wherever there's a will, his mother _will_ find a way.

The scars on Regina's back can attest to that.

"Oh—oh—_Robin_—yes!" comes the woman's voice again from behind closed doors, as if on cue, and he looks torn between fury and embarrassment, starting forward as though he's about to storm inside and give this "Robin" and his paramour a piece of his mind.

"Wait," and Regina is holding him back with a quelling touch to his arm, "don't. It's not worth it."

His fist clenches at his side for a moment longer before he finally concedes, though his anger relapses momentarily as the hidden couple's lovemaking reaches its dramatic overture. When Regina starts to withdraw her hand he gives a start like it physically pains him and he grabs it back, tugging her to him, looking forlorn. "Would it be all right if we sought out a less… uncomfortable place to discuss this?"

Without giving her a chance to respond, as though he knows what she would say if he did, Robin pulls her away from the door and the people behind it, threading his fingers stubbornly through hers when she tries to resist. She stumbles to match his strides as he marches them down the staircase and through the great entrance hall, evidently no longer shy about letting the entire castle know what his mother already does.

But Regina's not ready, she's terrified, and the blind panic is threatening to close in, until she realizes that the few people they run into—a reedy, older gentleman she recognizes to be the husband of the castle seamstress, and then a surly looking bearded fellow on his way to the stables heaving a stack of hay larger than he is—don't turn a single head in their direction.

Either nobody can be bothered to notice as they pass by, or Mrs. Lucas was right; everyone has in fact been aware all along, and she's the only one who's been living in the kind of fantasy where it's not anybody's business to know but them.

At least the people who matter haven't begun to talk, Mrs. Lucas' voice reminds her. Not yet, anyway; or not at all, if the marchioness has anything to say about it.

And indeed, apart from the occasional servant folk, the halls are blessedly empty. It's still too early for breakfast, as the marquis' many guests of honor sleep off the evidence of last night's revelry in order to prepare for the next. (Too early, even, for the marquis himself to stir from bed; his wife, on the other hand, always seems incapable of lying still past dawn. Regina wonders if the marchioness has had a good and satisfied laugh by now at her expense.)

Maybe, in time, she could learn to live with the envious sighs from Mrs. Lucas' pouty young granddaughter, or the other scullery maids' bitter speculation about her virtue and intentions. The people who are cut from the same cloth as the marchioness, on the other hand—she doesn't think she'd ever be able to stomach their contemptuous looks to see them together, or their complacent little smirks to finally see them apart. And knowing that his mother will do everything in her power to ensure it ends up that way, she feels helpless to do anything but end it on her own terms.

For now, though, the only steps that echo off the walls are their own, so she lets him take the most conspicuous route back to her room—or her cupboard, as he'd so charmingly put it.

.

.

.

Regina shuts the door while he settles down onto the small feather-padded quilt that passes for her bed, making himself quite at home before pulling her into his lap. She folds easily into his embrace, closing her eyes as he runs his palms across her middle, settling them into the curves of her waist, and she turns her head, tucking it under his chin with a small sigh. She'll give herself this, one last time, before she tells him, before she makes it her decision to let him go, hers and hers alone. But a deep unshakable anguish settles into her entire being at the very thought, and she longs for something, for anything, to banish it from her mind.

When she opens her eyes again, she blinks them in surprise to see a brand new candle sitting in the bronze bowl beside her stack of books, perfectly upright, to replace the one that had burned out the night before. She wonders how long it's been there, if it had simply been too dark for her see it when she'd woken up before the sun had that morning.

"You were fast asleep when I came last night," Robin murmurs, answering the question she hadn't spoken out loud.

Her heart soars despite itself.

"You were here?" she asks in a voice far too breathless, far too vulnerable for her liking.

He chuckles into her hair. "I had to see you. I couldn't stop thinking about you the entire evening."

She pictures Marian's striking face, her smile that he had returned, and she hates herself for doubting him, even now.

"Regina," he clears his throat then, "I have to tell you something." Feeling her stiffen, he rubs his palms up and down her arms, across her shoulders, trying to soothe the tension there, but then he only makes it worse when he tells her, "I met someone," before adding unnecessarily, "last night."

She's a second away from catapulting out of his lap when he backtracks hastily, "No, not like that," looking chagrined at his poor choice of words as she turns to stare blankly at him. "We only danced."

"I see," is all that falls from her mouth, her words deceptively calm while her heart beats out a furious rhythm in her chest. All her concerns about the marchioness suddenly seem trivial in light of the fear that's been festering into a reality since the day he first kissed her—that he doesn't need his mother's help to fall out of her love with her. That it requires such little effort he's completely capable of doing so all on his own.

"Maid Marian was perfectly pleasant, I dare say," Robin concedes, and the confirmation of her identity isn't helping matters, "quite amiable, bless her heart, and heaven knows my mother was rather…aggressive in her encouragement, to say the least, but—" His voice drops octaves into a low, rumbling tenor as he removes his hands from where goosebumps have spread over her bare arms, folding them onto her lap and uncurling the fingers she has wadded into fists there. "Regina…" He drops a scratchy little kiss onto her shoulder, then nuzzles his nose into her hair and breathes deeply, once, twice, once more. "All I could think about was this."

"This?" she echoes, her hands clammy, cold and lifeless in his.

"Holding you," he tells her roughly. "Touching you." When she remains mute, he twists her around in his arms, blue eyes earnest, searching. "Regina, I'm sorry. I'm sorry about last night. I'm sorry about this morning. I'm sorry you believed me unfaithful for even a _second_. I thought I was protecting you from my mother, but I can see now how misguided my intentions were." His eyes burn into hers as he traps her face between his hands. "If she does indeed know, then what is there for us to hide? Perhaps there was never a reason to do so in the first place."

Her heart gives another treacherous lurch as Mrs. Lucas tells her again in a disapproving tone, _Nothing good can come of this_. But his stubbornly blind optimism is only making it that much more difficult for her to leave him, before that nothing good has a chance to become something bad.

He takes advantage of her silence, continuing, "I have something for you," and for possibly the first time since she has known him, Robin sounds tentative, almost…shy. He deposits her on the bed with a swift kiss to her brow before striding two steps over to her wardrobe—a splintered, pitiful-looking thing she'd shoved into the corner of her room, that holds what few, modest items she can claim as her own. He cracks the door open and a foreign bundle of deep gleaming scarlet cascades out.

"Absolutely not," Regina responds instantly, jumping to her feet in shock.

"I thought you might say that," he interjects, "which is why I acquired this too," and he presses the ball gown gently off to one side so he can pull something else out from behind it.

She stares dumbly at the mask he offers to her now.

"The ball tonight was designed to be a masquerade," Robin explains, "upon my request at the conclusion of the previous evening's festivities." He traces the delicate gold edge with a finger, along the upward slant of the eye where it tapers off into a series of jet-black feathers, as he continues, "I had anticipated your refusal, and thought perhaps I would make the prospect of it slightly less daunting before I convinced you to attend. Although, now that my mother seems to have realized where my heart truly lies, a masquerade may no longer be necessary?" And he fixes her with a ridiculous, hopeful grin.

He must be joking. Momentarily distracted from heartache, Regina folds her arms across her chest. "You…want me to go to the ball. With you."

"Yes," he says, more cautiously now.

Stay calm. Stay calm. "Are you out of your _mind_?" she explodes. Too late.

"Not to my knowledge, no," Robin frowns.

"I can't," she tells him, shaking her head with such frantic energy she feels the room spin with it. "I can't—I can't openly defy your mother like that!" it would certainly be one thing to get caught canoodling in a corner of the castle, but this is entirely another altogether. What does he envision happening? That he'll parade her around in some fancy gown, in front of countless noblemen, their wives, their daughters, like she thinks she's _one of them_—and expect his mother and father to look on with, what, pride? Joy? Acceptance?

If the marchioness somehow managed not to lose her own head at the sight of such a display of utter indecency and insubordination, then she would surely have Regina's instead.

Accurately guessing the direction her thoughts have taken her, Robin speaks now, "If you're concerned about what people might say, or what my mother will do when she sees you, I _will_ protect you."

But then after they make their remarks about the devious, opportunistic servant girl, they would turn on him as well. _What on earth?_ they'd mutter to each other under their breaths as they collectively wondered, _Has Robin of Locksley gone mad after all those years away from proper civilization? Bathing in streams, trekking over mountains, living in the forest amongst all manner of ill-bred men?_ And what if their murmurings persuade him into seeing the error of his ways?

She imagines Marian politely hiding a smile beneath a well-placed glove as Regina trips over the hem of a gown worth more than whatever the marchioness had paid her mother in exchange for her child's lifelong servitude. Sees Robin, as he bows himself out of the dance they would be sharing to reclaim his position by his mother's side; and the marchioness praising him for finally coming to his senses, embracing his birthright, learning his true place amongst those beneath him—

It's honorable of him to think he can protect her from them, but naïve all the same, when he doesn't even realize that he's the one with the greatest capacity to hurt her. How could he possibly protect her from himself?

"I don't know," Regina finally says, a lie, because she does; she knows that if she doesn't break through to his unrealistic delusions about their future together, then her heart will be the one that's left in pieces.

"Wear the mask, then," he urges. "If you're not ready to face her, then it doesn't have to be tonight. I just—the thought of spending another evening surrounded by all the women in the world save for the one I love—" But he cuts off when she turns away, and the mask falls to the floor as he takes the two steps he needs to gather her rigid, unyielding body back into his arms.

"You beautiful, stubborn woman," he whispers fiercely. "Why do you cling to this belief that my love for you isn't real?" His hold tightens around her waist, drawing her close as he peppers tiny kisses along her hairline. "I just need you to be aware," kiss, "that I will never give up doing everything in my power," kiss, "to convince you otherwise." The last one he presses to her mouth, lingering there for a second longer before pulling away. "Until my dying breath, if it comes to that."

"Idiot," she mutters, managing to sound halfway back to her normal herself, and his answering chuckle rumbles through the fingertips she's pressed into his chest.

Robin grows serious again as he tips her chin up to hold her gaze, then directs it with his to the glorious red garment peeking out of her wardrobe. "I will be looking for the woman in that dress tonight." When he turns back to face her, the heat in his eyes steals her breath away. "And I promise you I'm not stopping until I find her."

.

.

.

He refuses to leave until she promises in return that she'll think about it, and then she's the one who doesn't let him leave until he's made her another stating he won't go seeking out his mother as soon as he does (_We could be wrong_, she says, _maybe she had nothing to do with this_, though they both know better). He only relents when he recalls the unsupervised state in which he'd left his room, and after one last brief kiss to her lips he stalks off, muttering something about burning his bed sheets, with or without the people still in them.

She watches his retreating back from her doorway, already missing the feel of it beneath her hands, the way his gaze alone scorches her to her very soul; already wondering how much longer the heat of it will last once he realizes that she's not the one who deserves to be seen the way he inexplicably does.

And she loves him, she realizes with a painful knock in her chest as she bends to pick up the fallen mask, she'd never allowed herself to think it before, but she does now, and now is too late. She fights back a fresh wave of loathsome tears as she staggers over to shut the wardrobe door.

"So. You're going to let that old hag win, are you?"

Regina lets out a startled yelp and whirls around, backing up into the wardrobe and slamming it closed.

"Who are you?" she demands breathlessly of the woman standing before her now.

The woman's lips curve up delightedly, red as the wild mane of curls on her head. But it's hardly the most striking feature about her, for every inch of skin exposed by her skintight black dress is a dazzling shade of effervescent green.

"How refreshing," she declares, clasping her hands together from where she's leaning with her back against the windowsill. "Most people only care to know _what_ I am, not who."

"Who are you?" Regina insists again, casting a furtive glance over to her bedroom door, which she's absolutely certain she'd closed after Robin left. How on earth, then, had she gotten in?

The green woman gives a coy little kick of her heel as she hops off her perch on the window, extending her hands out to grasp one of Regina's.

"The name is Zelena," she answers, beaming. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, darling."

"I'm sorry," Regina starts, wondering why she's bothering to be polite with this strange woman who has seemingly materialized out of nowhere, uninvited, in her bedroom, "but am I supposed to have any idea who you are?"

"Oh," laughs Zelena. "How silly of me to only half-introduce myself properly. Regina, I'm your fairy godmother."

Wonderful. Not only is she parading about her room as though they're long-lost sisters, but she's clearly just escaped from the insane asylum as well.

"How do you know my name?" Regina asks aggressively, hands balling into fists behind her back in case she needs to make quick use of them.

But Zelena looks more petulant than dangerous as she lets out an indignant huff. "I just told you I'm your fairy godmother. Honestly, were you _even _listening?" She shoos Regina off the wardrobe and reopens it, rifling through its contents as confidently as if it were her own. Regina can only stare, stunned, as she reaches purposefully into the farthest corner and unearths a worn wooden box with a rusting, cast-iron clasp that would've taken great effort to find if one did not already know where it had been hidden.

Dust clouds burst forth into the stale air as Zelena creaks it open, revealing a dainty pair of crystalline heels nestled in a cushion of forest green velvet. "These belonged to your sister, didn't they?" she asks curiously.

But how could she possibly—?

Resigning herself to the fact that this day is simply not destined to go anywhere near the realm of expected, Regina sighs, affirming, "They're all I have of her. She left home when I was very young—too young to remember what it was actually like to have a sister. I always thought she would return for me someday, but even after our d—after our father passed away, she..." Her throat closes up at the memory of waiting by the window every day for someone who never came back for her, as she would do again years later when it was her mother who had been the next one to leave her behind.

"Mmm," murmurs Zelena sympathetically, though she seems to be only half-listening as she examines the shoes with a critical eye. "Yes, these will do," she decides finally, looking pleased.

"Do for what?" Regina asks, though her suspicions are confirmed when Zelena sets the glass slippers aside and reaches for the red gown next.

"I'm not going to the ball," Regina tells her firmly, for her own benefit just as much as the other woman's, but Zelena only laughs, a wicked, throaty sound.

"Don't be ridiculous," she scolds, smiling with all her teeth now. "Of course you are."

Regina opens her mouth to deliver a heated retort when the dress glides out of the wardrobe with a soft, luxurious swish, revealed in all its glory to be every bit as beautiful as she had dared to imagine it. What had she been about to say?

"That's what I thought," Zelena sniffs triumphantly, trailing a finger down the lush, silken skirts billowing out from a narrow waistline, bright green in a sea of scarlet. "Now…" she holds it up against Regina's frame, sultry lips arranged into a thoughtful pout. "Something tells me this was made to fit you like a glove. Let's see, shall we?"

And even if Regina had the wherewithal to decline (her resolve is wearing thinner and thinner as they speak), it turns out it would hardly matter; with a snap of Zelena's fingers, she suddenly finds herself enveloped in a viridescent smokescreen, and when it clears, gone are the limp brown rags that had fallen formlessly over her body like a potato sack—the hand-me-down apron, the handkerchief she'd tied around her hair that morning as she bathed the marchioness' feet. In their place, the crimson-colored fabric clings to her body like a second skin, impossibly smooth and fluid as water as she turns to examine her reflection between the cracks of the mirror tacked to the wall by her wardrobe.

_Imposter_, a nasty voice hisses into her ear, but she shrugs it off, mesmerized by the transformed creature who stands before her now. She runs her palms across the bodice and down over her waist, imagines Robin's hands there in place of hers, and she closes her eyes as the ghost of his breath, the stubble of his kiss, brushes over her bare shoulder.

"Do you always have soot on your face?" Zelena grumps then, licking her thumb and swiping it impatiently across Regina's brow, and her eyes pop back open.

"This changes nothing," she insists, the illusion effectively shattered. "I'm still not going."

"Then you're twice as absurd as I originally thought you were," Zelena accuses her. "That stupid man is madly in love with you. It's positively sickening, really. Even his mother knows. With that out of the way now, what could _possibly _be the problem?" She holds a stern finger up to silence Regina's protest. "And don't so much as think about using her as an excuse. If I hear one more thing about the marchioness"— she spits out the word like it puts a foul taste in her mouth—"I _swear_ I'll expire from boredom."

"Yes, heaven forbid that from happening," Regina says, but she sighs in defeat as Zelena begins separating locks of her hair, twisting strands experimentally this way and that.

"Hold on a moment," says Zelena suddenly, hands stilling, and Regina tenses instantly, knowing what the woman has just seen, what she'd been a fool to forget to hide. "What are these?"

"Nothing," Regina mutters, pulling away and folding her hair back over the scars exposed by the deep cut of her gown.

Zelena looks mutinous.

"Nothing?" she repeats. "Does your nobleman know about all of this _nothing_?"

"I'd rather not talk about it," Regina snaps, hugging her arms protectively around her chest.

"So he doesn't, then. Why?"

"I _said_ I'd rather not talk about it," she hisses.

"You think he won't fight for you if you do," Zelena realizes, "that you're more trouble than you're worth," and the silence that follows confirms it. "You…are a complete idiot!" She's deep in thought for a long moment, and then: "Even if he was willing to keep silent for one more day on your behalf, I can assure that this is something he will most certainly _not_ stand for. And neither will I."

She retrieves the mask, muttering something under her breath; it glows briefly before she's pressing it firmly into Regina's hands. "I understand your reservations, I truly do. That woman is more of a monster than I realized. But you _are_ going to this ball now, whether you like it or not. And before you say you can't—I _know_, I know—I have an idea of who can go in your place. Watch this." And she guides the mask over Regina's face, securing it onto the bridge of her nose.

A prickling pain shoots down her back, as though she's just lain down on a bed of pins and needles, and then as quickly as it spreads to her toes and fingertips, it dissipates completely, leaving nothing but a vaguely odd, foreign sensation deep in her bones, as though her body no longer belongs to her. And then she lifts her head back up to the mirror and sees someone else's face staring back at her from behind the mask.

"I'd say that's a worthy compromise, wouldn't you?" Zelena asks as she reaches for Regina's hair once more, a lighter hue now, streaked with hints of red and gold. "Now you're freed from everything that's holding you back." She watches as Regina presses her fingers into the unfamiliar new contours of her mouth, her cheeks, her jawline. "Go. Be with him. But you have to promise me you'll tell him the truth by the end of the night. He deserves to know." Regina starts to argue, but she shushes her. "Until then, this disguise will be what protects you from her. From all of them. It will give the marchioness the satisfaction of thinking she's won when you don't show up, but we'll know better, won't we?"

Robin won't, Regina thinks wretchedly, staring down at hands she does not recognize, then back up at her reflection, with lips too thin to be her own, hazel blue eyes instead of charcoal brown. She wonders briefly if it's worth the trade-off, to be with him at the cost of his knowing it; but as long as he doesn't then his mother won't either, and the thought of spending one more night haunted by images of Marian in his arms nauseates her. A different voice is whispering in her ear now, telling her to fight back, to fight for him—that if she's willing to give up on them this easily, or to believe that he is, then his love is just one more thing she doesn't deserve.

"Why are you doing this?" she asks finally. "Why are you helping me?"

Zelena pauses in her fiddling with Regina's hair and their eyes meet in the mirror. For the slightest fraction of a second she sees something flash through Zelena's eyes, but it's gone before she can tell whether she'd imagined or not. "Well what else do you suppose fairy godmothers would be good for?" she asks exasperatedly, and Regina supposes she has a point, because up until today she would've snorted with a derisive response of _Next to nothing_, because fairies? There's no such thing.

"There is a caveat," Zelena is warning her now, and of course there is, "All magic comes with a price. And as is the case with most things, it won't last forever. The spell will break at midnight. But," she sounds optimistic again, "that should give you plenty of time to enjoy your evening and come clean with him. He would be a fool not to stand up for you after he learns the truth. And I'm guessing he is the furthest from such a thing."

There's a lump in Regina throat as she admits, "I don't know if I can."

"What are you afraid of?" Zelena asks, an unexpected softness to her voice now. "That he will stop loving you? Or that _they _never will?"

"I already know they won't," Regina replies. "I don't belong in their world." She curses herself for sounding like a sad, broken little thing. "I don't belong in _his _world."

"Think of tonight as a test," Zelena offers. "Maybe you do. Maybe that world will surprise you."

Regina shakes her head, grateful for the mask now that it's there to catch her tears before they fall down her cheeks. "That doesn't seem possible."

"Maybe _he_ will surprise you, then," states Zelena, all resolve and determination. "Have you ever considered that perhaps _you're_ his world now?"

.

.

.

Regina wobbles on her glass heels, unaccustomed to the extra four inches they add to her frame, as she drifts between marble columns and around banquet tables, trying not to draw too much attention to herself. She contemplates sneaking a bite of baked plum wrapped in strips of pork when she spots Mrs. Lucas walking briskly toward her, panicking for a split second before the woman bustles right by, grumbling something about more mulled cider for the "royal brats." The housekeeper had been so distracted all day, having spent the better part of it cleaning up after said brats who had gotten properly schnockered off of said cider, that she hadn't even noticed when Regina had snuck off to make her own preparations for the ball.

After finagling her way into her gown and mask (a task made much more difficult without the aid of Zelena's magic)**,** Regina had hidden with her ear pressed against the doorframe until all sound behind it had ceased, so that she wouldn't be caught sneaking toward the ballroom from the direction of the servants' quarters. And then she couldn't have reversed course even if she'd wanted to, as an influx of boisterous, well-dressed gentlemen and the dazzlingly styled women adorning their arms swept her up in a whirlwind to match the previous evening's fervor.

Her breath had caught for a brief moment as she passed the marquis and marchioness (who looked decidedly more smug than usual), but when they only nodded and smiled graciously in her direction before bestowing the same upon the next girl behind a mask, she'd let it out in a relieved sigh before continuing on. Every few steps would produce another involuntary twitch as familiar faces from the kitchens whisked by, balancing large serving dishes of pear and Brie baked in maple sugar, but they never spared her a single glance. And then she'd nearly jumped out of her skin when a white-gloved hand fluttered over her arm as its owner praised her gown; but before Regina could decide whether to thank her or not—lest it lead to awkward follow-up questions about where it had come from—the woman had vanished back into the crowd.

It's an odd feeling, to be a fish out of water, to blend in with the birds in a set of borrowed wings—to wait for someone to discover they're fake, to expose them for what they are. But until then, she'll have that baked plum, thank you very much, and she takes advantage of the reprieve that chewing gives her from having to verbally fend off multiple offers to dance, as her eyes search for the one man she could never say no to.

And then her heart leaps into her throat at the sight of him, looking handsome as ever in a maroon and gold doublet as his own gaze scans the crowd. She swallows, taking a hesitant step forward, when she spots Maid Marian approaching from the opposite end of the ballroom floor, recognizable even with a mask covering half her features. Regina shrinks instinctively back as she watches the woman glide up to greet him with an elegant touch to his arm, a celestial smile on her face. Robin says something that has her smile widening, but then it falters slightly as he glances distractedly around again.

Their eyes meet across the room.

As his face splits into a heart-stopping grin, it takes every effort for her to look demurely away, reminding herself that she has someone else's face, is in someone else's body (though its heart races now as though it were her own). Out of the corner of her eye she sees him making his way purposefully in her direction, pausing only to offer an apologetic smile to a couple he nearly knocks over in his haste to get to her. But when he does, she sees the confusion dawn in his eyes as she turns around to face him, and he draws back the hand he had been about to place on her elbow.

"Oh. Forgive me, milady," he utters, frowning slightly. "I…mistook you for someone else."

"It's all right," Regina responds, and the sound of her own voice is so foreign to her, higher-pitched and daintier around the edges, that she almost turns around to see where it's coming from.

"You…" Robin's eyes take in the detailing of her dress, and then lift up to do the same to her mask, as if to reassure himself that they are up close what he'd thought them to be from afar. But there's no mistaking the fact that while she may bear her mask and wear her gown, this is not his Regina standing before him, and his face visibly falls.

Her pulse is hammering now.

"I don't seem to be what you were expecting," she says, and he looks abashed at his poor manners.

"Please accept my sincerest apologies," he says, dipping his head, "I really thought you were—" he pauses, unsure how to proceed, but looks desperate enough to know that he asks, "may I inquire as to where you got your dress?"

"The man who has my heart gave it to me," she replies honestly, and Zelena was right; it really is remarkable, how freed she feels, not to be burdened by her own identity.

Robin looks floored. "I see," he says, a crease in his brow, and she frowns in irritation, knowing exactly what he's thinking.

"Not every woman is here in the hopes of winning your hand, you know," she tells him tartly before she can help herself.

He blinks in bewilderment. "That wasn't," he starts, but then his attention seems caught by the hands she has fisted rather defiantly against either hip, and the look of disdain that's curled her lip and scrunched her nose in a way that she realizes too late her mask has poorly concealed.

"I'm sorry," Robin says, regarding her curiously, "but have we met before?"

"Oh, no, I don't think so," she says hurriedly, hands and face loosening into what she hopes will appear more passive. "I'm sure I would remember."

He smiles crookedly. "I'm not exactly endearing myself to you at the moment, am I."

"Not particularly," she says, and he actually chuckles.

"In that case, I shall simply have to redeem myself to your good graces," and he offers his hand with a gallant bow. "Would you care to dance?"

"Oh, I'd rather not, thanks," she says, back-stepping hastily into the banquet table, cringing at the clink of silver on silver and the sound of Mrs. Lucas tut-tut-ing nearby as platters and dishware get rearranged. Of all the potentially disastrous things she'd been wary of happening tonight, waltzing with Robin was one she had somehow completely overlooked.

"I'm not much of a dancer," she states matter-of-factly.

His smile widens. "You remind me more and more of someone I know," he tells her, and she flushes beneath her mask; not a week before, as they'd been riding Shadowfax deep into the woods, he'd forced them to make an impromptu stop by the river, where he had then proceeded to spin her about in circles despite her very forceful insistence that she'd rather have both feet firmly on the ground.

"Is that supposed to make me any less reluctant to dance with you?" Regina retorts now, and at his eyebrow raise she scolds herself for her mistake, remembering that she is supposed to be a stranger to him, and even in the body of a noblewoman the marchioness would be no less inclined to have her head if she heard her addressing her son that way.

But her response has only seemed to amuse him more. "I must admit that your honesty is rather refreshing, milady. However, I simply have to insist."

She frowns reluctantly as he takes the hand she's refused to offer him on her own. "What choice do I have then?"

"Not much of one, I'm afraid," he grins, biting his lower lip the way he always does when he's driving her up the wall and knows it. For one ridiculous moment, jealousy warms her skin, threads into a tight net around her heart, squeezes there, but then she catches his eyes darting around the ballroom again, cautiously hopeful still, looking for another dress to match her own; and she hates that she's set herself up to feel like this, to trick him as she has done, because she's too weak to be any other way.

With one arm firm around her waist and the other lifting her hand delicately into the air, he leads them seamlessly into the ebb and flow of the couples twirling around them, and when her heels crisscross at the wrong time he smoothens her fumble with an improvised dip. Her heart does its own little dance as he rights her again, and her hand clutches briefly at his shoulder before remembering its rightful place, rigid and proper just above his elbow. But he has nothing but a kind smile to offer her, and she loves him all the more for it, hurts all the more for it, too.

"So," she starts when she thinks she's gotten the rhythm of the steps down and can reasonably speak at the same time without looking too foolish, "where's _your _mask?"

"I have nothing to hide," Robin shrugs. "And I wanted to be easy to find. For…" he trails off.

"For?" she prompts, throat closing in around the word.

His smile breaks slightly. "I'd rather not bore you with the mundane aspects of my personal life."

"I'd hardly call having a ball thrown in your honor mundane," she remarks.

"Yes," and he looks genuinely bothered for the first time that evening, "for the purpose of marrying me off to a perfect stranger."

"Well," and she avoids his gaze by pretending to glance interestedly over at the musicians thrumming away on their stringed instruments as they glide by, "you seem to have a rather generous selection of perfect strangers at your disposal tonight."

He shakes his head. "Milady, please take no offense to this, but you are not the only one who is here dancing with someone when your heart belongs to another."

_You. He's talking about you, you idiot. _"This woman that you're looking for," Regina begins, a traitorous hitch in her words. "What—what is she like?"

"She…" He seems at a loss of words to describe her for a moment before answering, finally, "She's the most beautiful thing I have ever seen." He's told her this over and over, every single time he does she rolls her eyes and shoves him away, but to hear him confessing it to another woman feels like a different thing entirely and it takes every fiber of her being not to pull him closer. "She doesn't smile often, but when she does—when she _truly _smiles, and I know it's because I've somehow managed to make her do so—it takes my breath away."

She is now finding it difficult to breathe herself.

"I was mad for her since I was a young boy," he says ruefully. "When my mother shipped me off to boarding school, I was devastated, to put it in the mildest way."

Even after she'd scarred him with an apple to the face. The memory brings a smile to hers now, before she has to quash it down.

Thankfully, he's distracted enough by his own version of the memory that he doesn't notice. "I actually came back, for a time, when I was on holiday." He'd mentioned this to her before, during one of their late-night rendezvous that had left her mind blurry and body longing for sleep the next day, but never as much as she longed for him. "I had every intention of making an utter fool of myself, professing my love for her, and as soon as I arrived I went off in search to do just that. But then I caught her unawares in the orchards and she—she was crying."

Regina can only stare at him. He'd never told her this part before.

"I couldn't bear to let her know I'd seen her with her guard down like that. And when I inquired after some of her companions on the matter, they informed me that it was over another boy."

He must mean Daniel, she realizes with a start. The stable boy she had admired from afar in her early teenage years, and the day she learned the marquis had sold him to another family had been miserable indeed, but she hadn't thought of it in years; and to know that it had been haunting Robin ever since—

"So I left once more," he says, "this time with no intention of ever returning. But when I heard recently that she was still unspoken for…I dared to hope I still had a chance."

"And did you?" she asks breathlessly.

"A man blinded by love can only hope." And he blinds her now with a lopsided smile.

She takes a moment to recover before asking, "What about the other man?"

"To be honest, I've been afraid to broach the subject," he admits. "If she still harbors feelings for him—I know I'm weak for it, but I'd almost rather not know." A low chuckle. "I'm but an idiot in love. I can only hope your tale is half as rife with the drama of mine." He nods invitingly at her then, but she's not ready for him to change the subject, to admit to her own side of the same story.

"Is that why you think she's not here now?" she presses on, wanting to shake him for how wrong he would be if he does.

"I think," he frowns, "that she's sacrificing a lot to be with me. And perhaps I am selfish for asking it of her, but—"

Regina's jaw nearly unhinges and drops to the floor at that. When he is the one risking the respect of his title, the honor of his entire family, to be with a lowly maid—_this _is how he feels?

Robin is shrugging helplessly even as he looks around one last time. "Maybe this—maybe it's not worth it, to her."

"Doesn't she love you?" she asks, surprised by how aggressive she sounds. The idiot. Doesn't he realize?

But hasn't she been the one to push him away all along?

An ache spreads deep into her soul as he looks down for a moment before meeting her gaze, and the pain in his eyes is like a punch in her gut. "I don't know," he says finally. "I—I don't know."

It takes every last shred of energy she has not to rip her mask off right there and then, to press her lips to his again and again until he believes, but even now something holds her back. She wants nothing more than for him to see her, to really see her, and to look at her as he always does, not with polite interest but with the fiery declaration of his love burning through his eyes, so that she can finally return it with one of her own. And yet, she can't allow herself to want it. Knows it's not what she deserves. That this is not what _he _deserves.

"I'm sorry," she gasps, heels clicking to an abrupt halt. "I—I have to stop."

"Have I done something to upset you, milady?" Robin frowns. "I'm afraid I am all apologies and no manners tonight."

"It's not you," she insists, because it's her. Her fault that she'd been so selfish as to think he'd only end up hurting her if she didn't walk away, when all she does is hurt him by staying. How can she burden him with the truth now?

"Wait. What is this?" he asks, voice soft and warm, and she looks down to see what has caught his eye—droplets of scarlet bleeding through the white palm of her glove. Before she has a chance to protest he's removed it from her hand with one swift motion; to her horror, the scar has begun to shimmer back into existence, and the burn blister she'd gotten the day before has reopened—there's no mistaking them, or what they mean. The spell is wearing off.

"It's nothing," she says, tries to rip both hand and glove from his grasp, but he holds firm.

"You know," he begins, "it's rather odd, but I've seen these exact markings before." And he's scrutinizing her face again, with an intensity in his eyes now that she's more accustomed to, but the clock must not have yet struck twelve because they cloud with confusion once more when they see nothing familiar behind the mask there. She spots his mother close by, too close, engaged in deep conversation with Maid Marian, the daughter-in-law of her dreams, and Regina's breathing shallows. She's running out of time.

"But how," Robin is muttering to himself, and she takes advantage of the slippery realm of the impossible where his mind has been diverted, stealing bonelessly away from him. As she sidles into a fresh wave of rustling skirts and soaring trains, her foot catches and steps right out of her glass heel, but seconds are too precious to lose so she leaves it there, palming her other shoe off before she runs the remaining distance barefoot to the ballroom door.

He doesn't call after her; but then, she'd never told him her name.


	4. Part IV

Regina is fighting her way out of her gown—one hand struggles blindly at the endless ties cinching up the back, while the other discards her shoe before fumbling with her glove—when she realizes with a start (and then a stop of her heartbeat) that the reason why he hadn't called after her was because he'd decided to follow instead.

She hears his footsteps still at the door and turns, stomach giving a tremendous lurch when she sees him standing there, slack-jawed and spellbound. She shrugs helplessly before him, glove bunched into a fist, one sleeve of her gown half-undone and dangling off her shoulder.

He doesn't say a word, face expressionless now, unreadable as he strides forward, and if she had any more room to back up against her wardrobe door she would, but as it is the fear has all but paralyzed her feet to the cold stone floor.

And then he's close enough for her to feel the heat rolling off his body, positively intoxicating now where it had been only pleasantly warm moments before (when he'd danced with yet another perfect stranger and she'd let him believe it to be so). Even with her mask covering half a face that still belongs to another, she feels exposed to the core and utterly raw from it; and as his hands come up to grip the gilded edges, gingerly removing it from the bridge of her nose, she trembles as the remainder of the spell washes instantly away.

Her eyelids flutter shut, adjusting to the odd sensation as every nerve, every fiber, of her being returns to its rightful place, and her heart to the man who owns it. When she finally opens them again, dares to meet his eyes from beneath her lashes, what she sees there is a look of abject wonder.

"It _was _you," he breathes, voice hoarse. "It was you all along."

And before she can find the strength to deny it, his mouth is upon hers, tender as the palms sliding to either side of her neck and splaying there, yet fierce as the fingers burying into the curls loosened from the clasp in her hair. He kisses her until she is dizzy from it, and the sound of his ragged breath when her lips part from his to drag in one of her own tingles down low into her belly and weakens her at the knees. Her hands grasp and clench at his elbows when his mouth places one last bruising kiss to hers before finding its way to her pulse point, stubble scratching across bare skin, sending delicious little shivers through her body from her spine.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she insists belatedly when she's finally caught her breath, and she might have sounded more convincing had the feel of his tongue tracing the contours of her neck not brought a hitch to her words as she said them.

"No?" he sounds amused, chuckles when she gives a vigorous shake of her head in response.

"No," she repeats, but damn it her voice loses all conviction as he untangles from her hair and travels down, palms dragging over her collarbone, to rest over the rise and fall of the swell of her chest.

"Well," Robin says roughly, nose tickling the hollow of her ear, teeth nipping at her lobe, and she's breathless all over again when she realizes he's just as affected as she is by the feel of her breasts in his hands, "perhaps this shall serve as a reminder." She squirms at the loss of heat when he suddenly relinquishes his hold on her to pull something out from the inner pockets of his doublet; and then she stills upon seeing her bloody, ruined glove in one hand, her missing glass slipper in the other.

"Never seen them—before," Regina tries to say, but the last part comes out muffled against the lips he presses back to hers, vibrating from the indulgent hum he releases into her mouth along with the heat of his kiss.

"In that case," he rumbles against her lips, "would you"—his tongue slips out to tangle with hers for a moment—"be so kind as to assist me"—and he slants his mouth to deepen the contact before pulling back again—"in locating the woman to whom these items _do_ belong?"

"Fine," she all but groans as his forehead nudges into hers while his breath warms her skin, cools the dampness of her lips left behind by his kiss, and then he's granting her a bedazzling smile before dropping suddenly to his knees, her glove fluttering to the ground beside him as he cups a warm hand around her bare ankle.

"What are you doing?" she gasps out, head falling back against the wardrobe with a dull thud as his touch travels up, up, up her thigh and then slowly back down.

"Just proving a point," he replies, capturing the back of her knee and coaxing it to bend, lifting her heel off the floor. Her toes wriggle as the cold crystal of the shoe encases her foot in an undeniably perfect fit.

"That doesn't actually prove anything," she tells him to no effect, "it could have fit fifty other girls downstairs, for all you know," to which he mutters a rascally _Not anyone else I particularly care to know about_, and then she's scowling at the smug quirk of his lips as he peers up at her from between her legs.

Oh God.

As though he's just come to the same conclusion she has, his playful smile widens into something positively roguish now, and she feels herself clench in anticipation before he's even dipped his head under her skirts, with a quiet whisper of silk on silk, and then heated skin on skin, as he drops wet, open-mouthed kisses along the inside of her thigh.

Rapturous little shocks are spreading deep into her core, tingling, pooling there, the combined softness of his lips with the surrounding roughness of his stubble _does_ things to her as he ventures closer and closer to where he has yet to touch her before, but then he's talking, why is he talking, and his hands loosen around where they've been rubbing the backs of her legs to extract himself from beneath her gown.

"I've not quite finished ravishing you up here yet," he says by way of explanation as he stands, and the single heel she teeters on has brought her to a height taller than he's accustomed to, so he bends a little more now than he might've to access the generous expanse of skin exposed by her low neckline, which she's beginning to suspect played more of a role than he'll ever admit to in handpicking this particular gown for her.

And then, speaking of his hands, and her gown, he slips one into the lace-lined edge that's pressed into her breast and supporting it to a perilous degree, thumb dragging over her nipple before creating enough space within her corset for him to dip down and take it into his mouth, between his teeth. She fists his hair with a startled gasp, fingertips spasming into his scalp as she feels him move under her touch, laving at her skin, and when her eyes close involuntarily his stabilizing hand across her back is the only thing that keeps her from swaying sideways and off her feet.

But he seems to grow increasingly frustrated with the confining nature of her bodice; his palm relaxes around her breast, withdrawing, then repositions with a firm grip over the center of the corset, and before she can even begin to process what he plans to do there (for it can't be good), he's ripped it clean in two.

Her breathing quickens at the sight of his own heaving chest as he takes her in, drowns her in the deep blue depths of his eyes, before reaching for her once more. The ruins of her dress dangle in pieces from her shoulders where her sleeves are still intact, and as his arms encircle her at the waist to examine the state of the back, deft fingers encounter the ties she'd been endeavoring to loosen when he first found her.

"Allow me to assist you with these, milady," he says gruffly, and succeeds easily where she had failed, the remainder of her bodice falling away within a matter of seconds. It's hardly fair, she's thinking headily as his hands find her hips and pull her against his chest, that he still has all his clothes on, and she's about to remedy this fact, fisting into his lapels and giving a sharp tug, when another thought nags at her, breaks through the cloudy haze of desire, and she leans back slightly, turning her lips away when he tries to capture them in another kiss.

Brow furrowed, Robin starts to speak but she stills his words with a gentle hand, a soft murmur of his name; she looks him solidly in the eye as she tells him, firmly, to expel any remaining doubt from his ridiculous mind, "There is no one else." He waits patiently, always so patiently for her to continue, "and there will never be anyone else. I do—I do love you," and her fingers trace the beautiful, incredulous smile beginning to curve up beneath them, "I love you," her eyes are burning and tears are falling, catching in the pads of his thumbs as he seizes her face between his hands, and then her voice is cracking with her confession, "I try to stop but I can't," but he will have none of that.

"Then don't," he rasps, "for the sake of my own sanity, please don't ever stop," and he picks her up clean off the ground, glass slipper and all; her arms throw around his shoulders, straining to carry her own weight, but he has her, and she knows now he will never let her fall. When her mouth lands on his, open and eager and waiting for her, the force he angles behind his kiss has her nose pressed into his cheek and her back against the wall, anchored there by the leg he's nestled up into the juncture of her thighs. The friction is tantalizing, arches her spine, exposes her breasts more fully to the hand he's dropped there, squeezing, caressing, and she's lost to the reverence of his touch, the feeling of being _worshipped_ by him.

She feels a heat at the small of her back move up with his palm, and then still. His mouth, devouring hers in a kiss that's all gasps and tongue and heated sighs, pulls back from her; she frowns, her thoughts a blur of confusion, before comprehension dawns as he traces the marks on her skin. And when she opens her eyes upon the look etched into his features, a furious battle of pain, devastation, absolute rage, she knows it's too late to push him away.

"Regina," he speaks now, and there's a touch of warning in his voice that hadn't been there a moment before, a warning that choosing to lie will only worsen matters he's determined to understand. "What is this?"

_Nothing_, she wants to say, but she finds she can't say anything at all; the word has dried up her throat and lodged there, festering, eroding a hole straight through her chest and into her heart.

"Turn around," he commands her, low but livid, leaving little room for her argue, and so she does, trembling all the while, and her arms come up instinctively to wrap around her bare front even though his attention has turned to her backside now. She feels defenseless, vulnerable, like a worn, broken secondhand thing, and then she's feeling his hands instead, shaking but gentle, oh so gentle, as they brush her hair off to the side and over her shoulders. She hears his sharp intake of breath, and she closes her eyes, sees what he must see: ragged raised lines marring otherwise creamy skin, some redder, rawer, more tender-looking than others, and he runs his fingertips over these now.

"Who did this?"

She hears Zelena urging her to speak up, declaring with more faith than she feels that he will protect her, that _he would be a fool not to stand up for you after he learns the truth_, as he repeats, his words filled with quiet fury this time, "Who. Did. This?"

"Who do you think?" she finally bites out, suddenly furious with herself, furious with him, for cornering her like this, for forcing her to explain out of obligation what she'd striven so hard to hide. Because this isn't his fight, she realizes now, and what difference does it make? It's simply how things are, how things will always be.

"Some of these don't look more than a few weeks old," he's observing in a hushed tone, and she grimaces openly knowing that he can't see it from where he stands. "When was this? Why didn't you tell me?" And she can't bear to answer, to hear the agony in his voice or see the despair dulling the brightness in his eyes when she tells him it was all for him, because he was carefree with his time and so she'd been careless with hers. But withholding the truth is unfair, and Zelena is right, it's not what he deserves, so once again she finds herself hurting him without doing a single goddamn thing, and she can never win.

But this is her fight to lose, not his.

"It doesn't matter," she says shortly, bracing herself for his explosive response.

He delivers, fuming, "Like hell it doesn't matter!" And then he's turning her to face him once more, but her arms stay crossed, eyes glowering, the delirious smile she'd given him not two breaths before now pressed into a thin defiant line.

"How could you—" Robin's hands are gripping her face, hard, then releasing her, and his frustration, by shredding through his hair, rubbing palms into his beard, "how could you not say something?"

"How could _I_?" Regina repeats dubiously. As though this is all her fault, and maybe it is. "Why _would_ I tell you? What would that change?"

"This changes _everything_!" he yells, but she's too nettled now to shrink back at the rising tide that is his voice.

"No!" she yells right back at him, jabbing a finger at him as her other hand reaches across her chest to press her forearm over her breasts. The mortification of the situation is not lost on her, standing there naked and exposed, from skin to soul. "This changes _nothing_. I'm still a servant, and you—you're still the son of a nobleman who's never wanted for anything in his life, or ever had to do so much as ask for it when you did!"

"Now there's where you're wrong," he thunders, "because I've wanted for you—my entire life. You _know _how I feel about you. I—"

And she knows what he's about to say, but it's not what she will let herself hear right now. "You don't," she seethes, "you don't—you're in love with the _idea_ of me more than anything! Something exciting and exotic and indecent and—"

"I won't even dignify that rubbish with a response," he growls. "By your leave, I stood aside and allowed my mother to play her manipulative little games with your heart, but not this. I will _not_ stand for this."

"What choice do you have?" Regina is outright shouting now, and to high hell if someone else hears her, as long as he does too—because she needs him to understand, how absurd it was for either to think they'd get the happily ever after they both deserved, if they thought they would find it with each other. "Or are you forgetting the simple fact that your—mother—owns—me!" And every word is punctuated by another jab to his chest, another drop of her heart into her stomach.

And she realizes why she had never told him about the marks on her back—not simply out of fear for his response, or lack thereof (she knows how foolish she'd been for doubting him in that way), but because it makes no difference for him to know, and yet all the difference in the world for him to think it does. Because fighting for the futility of this relationship, of their love, will only bring it to its inevitable end that much sooner. Because she knows that even though he won't stand for it, she will; she has to. Because he's fighting a fight he cannot win, and the sooner she makes this obvious to him, then the more grief they'll both be spared.

"My heart may belong to you, but your mother owns the rest of me. I am nothing more than a thing in her eyes," she explains to him, a damaged, unwanted thing, "a thing that belongs to her." A thing he doesn't have the power to save.

"You know you are much more than that," he pleads. "You _must_ know this."

"No, Robin," and she's the one holding his face in her hands this time, he's the one who needs comforting. A deep resignation, an acceptance of a future she can no longer avoid, has settled into her nerves now, calming them, and she has never seen things with such clarity until now. "I know what I deserve. And I've known it since the moment my sister abandoned me, and my father died, and my mother didn't love me enough to stay."

He looks horrified by how matter-of-factly she's condemned herself to such a fate, trapping her hands in his palms before she can move away from him, and she steps back as he takes one forward, doubting the strength of her resolve if she lets him get too close to her.

"You are only looking for excuses to push me away," he states, and it occurs to her that he may only be able to take so many before he lets her, or walks away on his own, and even though that's what she wants, because she can't allow herself to want otherwise, her heart collides painfully with her chest at the thought. "_Why_, Regina?"

So she pushes him further, physically shoves him now before bending down to grab the scarlet heap that is left of her gown, a gown that cost more than what her own life had been worth to her own mother, a gown that he had destroyed so effortlessly and without a second thought. "Because this isn't _me_, Robin," she says, brandishing the garment, an accusation, because shouldn't he have known better than to dress her up as someone she's not? "Why can't you understand that? I don't belong in that world!"

A bird may love a fish; but where would they live?

"Then what makes you think that's a world I want any part of?" he demands desperately. "Regina—please—"

"No!" Enough. No more. Her eyes burn from the tears that refuse to fall, because if they do she'll be a mess for him to kiss dry, and he can't, she can't, she has to stay strong enough to break her own heart. "That _is_ your world, Robin. Like it or not, you can't just renounce it the way you would a—a tunic that doesn't fit quite right, or—"

"Exactly what kind of man do you take me for?" Robin interrupts, infuriated. Good. Anger. She's the one who has made him this way. "I live by a code, Regina. Not a code governed simply by doing what's expected of me, or upholding some antiquated notion of familial duty—but a code of honor, of being good, and righteous—"

"Then do the honorable thing," she exclaims, imploring.

"And what do you believe to be the honorable thing under these circumstances?" he challenges her. "What are you trying to tell me, Regina?"

"I'm telling you to stop being so delusional!" she bursts out. "We have _no_ future together. Maybe in my wildest dreams I'd ride off into the sunset with you, but the only way that would ever happen is over your mother's dead body." And everything she couldn't bring herself to say, not even to herself, she says aloud now. "I shouldn't have to be the one to tell you this; you should have been man enough to admit it to yourself, to both of us, instead of dragging me into this mess that you can't fix. So just put yourself out of your misery, and mine, and—and—go marry someone like Maid Marian!"

He stares at her like she's just taken a meat cleaver and hacked his heart in two, and she realizes too late that she's gone too far.

He speaks slowly, disbelievingly, but with an aura of defeat, a finality that tells her there's no turning back if she pushes them beyond this point. "You can't mean that."

She swallows back the truth with a lie, and it's the most difficult lie she's ever told: "But I do." She looks him in the eye as she tells him, "I really do."

He shakes his head, as though to clear it of this entire disastrous scene he must have dreamt up in his sleep, a living nightmare, because that's the only plausible explanation for it, for why she's saying these things that are making him look at her like he potentially loves her a little less for them, like he's wondering who this woman is that he's nearly thrown away his entire life for, and was it all worth it?

Perhaps not.

And then it definitely wasn't.

She's paralyzed there for one second longer after he's gone (had watched helplessly as he backtracked all the way to the door and past it with this look on his face she hadn't recognized, he'd never looked at her that way before). One second longer, maybe two, before she understands what a horrible, horrible mistake she's made, the love she's just tossed aside as carelessly as the gown he'd damaged beyond repair, but damn the gown, his faith in them was what he'd given her to hold close to her heart, and she'd been the one to destroy it.

She runs across the threshold of her door with her ruined corset still clutched to her chest, turning about frantically, but the hallway is deserted, and he is well and truly gone. She stares after the empty corridor, her heart pounding violently in her chest as it heaves, struggles to get a breath into her lungs before she collapses from the ache that's building there, spreading, spreading.

"What have I done?" she chokes out, and when a soft swish echoes behind her she dares to hope as she whirls around, but the last person she'd ever expected or wanted to see, under any circumstances, is the one who stands before her now.

The marchioness gives her an indulgent little smile, hands folded regally across the front of her ivory beaded ball gown, mask still on, not a single lock of white blonde hair out of place. She must have left the festivities in search for Robin, and known exactly where to look.

Regina hadn't seen or so much as spoken with her face to face since that morning, when the woman had sent her on a mission to sabotage a lowly servant girl's happiness at the expense of her own son's. Zelena had badgered her into staying out of her way during the day before hiding in plain sight at the ball, in order to let the marchioness think she had won (and she has). So there's no precedent to set the tone for their interaction now, nothing to indicate how much she knows or doesn't, but as she examines Regina's disheveled appearance from head to toe, there's a vindictive glint in her eye that had never revealed itself until this moment.

And she's all the more frightening now that she's shed her façade as a shallow, flighty flibbertigibbet of a woman, to uncover the chillingly shrewd and calculating stone-cold heart that lies beneath it.

"Well," the marchioness says primly, in a deceptively offhanded manner. "It certainly appears as though my son got what he came for."

Regina's face positively burns as she all but spits at her, "Then you'll be happy to know you have nothing to worry about now."

"Oh. My sweet young child." The woman laughs without a single shred of humor, a deep musical sound that makes Regina's blood run cold. "Believe me; I never did."

"My dear sister," someone comes bellowing jovially around the corner then, and Regina's doubling back through her doorway at the sound of the Duke's sloshed, slaphappy voice. "Why do you insist on badgering this poor girl?" He appears in view, equally resplendent in a knee-length tunic of midnight blue, lined with silver and tapered at the waist. Regina has never bothered to pay much attention to his face before (his gaze, on the other hand, always seems to situate upon hers when she is near; not intolerably so, as he is never nothing short of amiable to her), but she notices it schooled into a look of pleasant concern for her now.

And all she can think is how badly she needs him to be Robin instead.

His beard is darker but peppered with grey, meticulously trimmed where his nephew's is rugged, and the Duke's smile, while perfectly agreeable, lacks the natural warmth of Robin's, the ability to set her nerves aflame because _his_ smile is meant for her, only her, and now she's pushed him to give it to someone else instead.

The Duke approaches her with a genial familiarity as he shrugs off his outer garment to wrap around Regina's body, shielding it from the cold air drawing goosebumps out of her skin, from the scathing, wintry blue eyes of the marchioness. The woman's delicate white shoulders shrug up and down and she drawls, as though bored by his ingratiating show of gallantry, "Honestly, Leopold, your attentiveness to this girl grows rather tiresome."

Her brother tuts, "Nonsense, dear sister," and then he's laying a comforting hand on Regina's clothed back; he turns to face her fully, effectively dismissing his sister from her view. "Now, my dour little darling, why don't we go find something more agreeable to change you into?"

.

.

.

Regina doesn't sleep that night. The candlelight burns, long after the tears have run dry, and well into the dawn; beyond the rooster's first cry, and the chiming of the clock tower that had shattered every remaining illusion of her happiness the moment it struck midnight.

And then any last shred of hope she still had the audacity to cling on to is obliterated by a single word.

She's in the kitchens, mute and mechanical in her motions, when the news reaches her that his eminent Lord Robin of Locksley has accomplished the unthinkable (so many had doubted his commitment to the task)—"Why, against all odds, he's become _engaged_!"—"At some point over the course of the night, is what I heard"—and "to a woman unparalleled in her good fortune, no doubt," the identity of whom remains the source of much speculation amongst the castle folk for the rest of the day.

The knife she had been using to prep vegetables for a hearty afternoon stew is pulled gently from her trembling grasp before she slices a finger to pieces instead; and when she comes to, she finds that Mrs. Lucas, with a gentleness uncharacteristic of her usual crabby demeanor, has deposited her out of harm's way in a pillowed nook beneath one of the kitchen windows, where she remains for many hours that she can't account for later.

Every puff of air she manages to take in and out is no small victory, her chest a crippled, hollow space save for the frozen slab of her heart resting there; and it's cracked, but it does not shatter until she sees them from her vantage point at the window, Robin guiding Shadowfax by the reins as he ambles down a small stone path that winds through the courtyard below, a hooded figure by his side. But Regina sees the dark brown curls peeking out from the edges of her riding cape, and she presses a palm to the glass, transfixed by the sight, and it's too horrifying not to be real.

Robin is speaking animatedly to Marian, with a near-wild energy evident in the way his free hand gesticulates emphatically back and forth, as Shadowfax trots patiently alongside them. Marian's head bobs up and down in a nod, and then she's speaking with what seems to be equal fervor, a gloved hand emerging from underneath the cape to settle briefly on the sleeve of his forearm.

And whatever she has to say has his face breaking out into a smile that spellbinds as he regards her with immeasurable gratitude, and Regina recognizes the look he's giving her now—the look of a man hopelessly in love and utterly blinded by it. He grasps Marian's hand in his and presses a swift kiss to her knuckles before swinging himself up onto Shadowfax's saddle, as though suddenly impatient, frantic, even, to attend to whatever task awaits him in a neighboring town.

He rides off then, green cloak billowing in the breeze, as he leaves the castle behind but takes Regina's heart along with him, dragging it miserably in the cloud of dirt Shadowfax kicks up after them as their figures retreat steadily into the distance.

.

.

.

The aura surrounding the ball that night is one of a more celebratory nature, understandably so, as it benchmarks the achievement of the very goal they had been designed to fulfill. A morbid curiosity draws Regina to hide behind the velvet-draped marble columns once more, almost carelessly this time, for now that she no longer has Robin, what more could she possibly stand to lose? Oddly, he is still nowhere to be seen—perhaps he has not yet returned from whatever preoccupation had taken him both from the castle and from his bride-to-be earlier that day—but the marchioness is everywhere, greeting guests with a genteel hand, a calm in her smile and a warmth that never quite reaches her eyes to thaw the ice there.

And when the woman's gaze falls on hers in the balcony, with a purposefulness that Regina knows she can't possibly have imagined, her smile widens into one of genuine pleasure as she turns, satisfied, back to her conversation with the Earl of Arundel. Nearby, attendees grow restless in their chatter as they await Robin's arrival, and the imminent announcement to follow, that will put all conjecture to rest regarding the mysterious identity of one future Lady of Locksley.

But this is the honorable thing, Regina's reminding herself, this is what she deserves, when there's a sudden scuffling sound from behind her, and then something is grabbing hold of her arm, wrenching her shoulder at an unnatural angle. Her answering scream is muffled by the large glove that reaches around to smother her mouth; and the last thing she sees before the rest of her world goes black is Maid Marian's large, brown eyes staring up at her, with an indecipherable expression on her face of unparalleled beauty.


	5. Part V

**A/N:** It's been so long! Hope this was worth the (very lengthy) wait :)

* * *

><p>The first thing Regina notices when she finally comes to is the unmistakable smell of fresh, damp hay. It presses like a blanket over her nose, nearly smothering her—a sensation not terribly surprising, she realizes as the remainder of her faculties return to her, because whoever's seen fit to kidnap her has pitched her body face-first into an unconscious slump on the ground. Dirt digs into her nails and stray bits of hay jab her cheeks where they've encountered earth. Soft, worried whinnies and light, restless clomps of hoof to soil sound from behind closed stalls.<p>

She opens a single bleary eye—the one that's not currently caked shut in mud—to take in the blurry sight of the barn from this brand new angle. It's decently well-lit, apart from the flickering flame of the torches overhead, throwing its equine occupants into occasional shadow.

Yet all she can see is that expressionless stare on Marian's face as she'd been drugged and dragged from the ballroom balcony.

Regina wonders if it had even crossed the woman's mind to call for help—before her focus would've been more pleasantly diverted by the arrival of her newly betrothed, the announcement of their pending union. Surely Shadowfax would have returned with her rider by now, though Regina's really in no position at the moment to know for sure. Maybe, if she could turn her head just so without setting off a lance of pain down her spine, she would find a white, wet muzzle poking anxiously over the corner stall door.

Or maybe it would be empty as it's always been, before a certain young man with his besotted blue eyes and crooked, dimpled grin had stolen into her life and back out with her heart.

Either way, she's here and he's not. He'd loved her, and she'd lost him. And she has no one to blame for it but herself and her own foolish weakness, her relentless fear despite his undying faith. If he's making slow, leisurely turns about the ballroom in the arms of another woman now, with the intent of taking her hand till death do them part, it's because Regina has pushed him there, again and again until he'd come to the same realization she'd dreaded all along: that he deserves better. He deserves more.

He deserves someone she will never be. Someone he can waltz with, who will glide instead of fumble, bear her own face with pride instead of hiding it behind a mask and someone else's magic, and Regina may have lost to the marchioness after all, but Marian is the one who's won, in the end.

She can't allow even the small, darkly hopeful parts of herself ponder whether there was some extenuating circumstance behind the fact that Marian had appeared neither shocked nor troubled to see her go. Because if she's to believe that this will be the best thing for Robin, that Marian is right for him where Regina is all kinds of wrong, then she has to believe in Marian, too. Has to trust that the woman is no criminal mastermind capable of abducting any would-be threats to her future as Lady of Locksley.

There's already enough of that in Robin's life, and it was enough to ruin any shot Regina would've had at her own chance at happiness with him (and now she can no longer deny her growing apprehension that she'll be getting more than just the lash of a whip on her back this time).

Still, knowing who is or isn't responsible for Regina's current predicament doesn't make it any less intolerable or demoralizing, as her elbows buckle beneath a weight they can't quite withstand, and she collapses back into the dirt, muffling her groan of pain. Her body protests all over, dejected and downtrodden, and she suddenly feels overcome with rage, so acute she nearly blacks out from it; it rushes in like a tidal wave, washing out the piteous self-loathing that's gritted into her soul like obstinate grains of sand.

Maybe if her damn fairy godmother hadn't come along when she did, with her tantalizing promises of how things _could _turn out rather than how they are meant to, Regina would've found the strength to end them long before someone else took it upon herself to do so. Or perhaps if Zelena had amounted to more than just some enchanted objects and a long string of bad advice, Regina would've found another ending altogether. One worthy of fairytales, that didn't leave her abandoned in a barn, dead to the world and to the only person in it whom Regina no longer knows how to live without anyway.

Why—_why_—had Robin chosen her, of all people, to burden with the strength of his love?

And why couldn't she have just let him, instead of torturing herself and, in turn, punishing him for it?

But it's pointless and she knows it, to point fingers at anyone but herself. She has no one else to blame for the rough, hacking cough that erupts from her lungs now as she inhales a mouthful of dust and hay; the tenderness in her back from having lain bent and twisted for so long; nor the sudden fear that cripples her senses, when she realizes she is not alone.

She hears it in the abrupt uptick of tension amongst her fellow pure-bred companions—the quickening of their hooves as they plod in place, their unsettled neighs as someone approaches—more than she does the man's actual footsteps, their heaviness absorbed into the dirt-packed ground. Black scuffed boots come to a stop mere inches from her face, which she lifts stolidly up now to meet a cruel, cold gaze.

Dark eyes glint from within a thicket of brown bristly hair and a beard to match, and a thin ugly mouth arranges into a leering smile as he addresses her, "Look who's finally awoken." Then, with a sinister edge, "you'll wish soon enough that you'd stayed asleep."

But Regina's done lying around waiting for someone else to deliver a sentence she doesn't deserve. "Don't touch me," she spits out like venom, and then spits on his boots.

He bends forward and backhands her across the face. She sees stars, tastes metal in her mouth.

"You mean like that?" he asks almost conversationally. "Bet that'll make you think twice before seducing the marchioness' son," and he grabs fistfuls of her hair, yanking, hard, until she's biting down hard to keep from crying out. "Fuckin' whore."

Her cheek burns where his knuckles had caught and broken skin, the blood beneath it simmering to a boil, but she won't give him the satisfaction of knowing his words have cut deeper than his hand had done.

"I'd rather get paid for pleasure," she sneers at him, "than for being a spineless guard dog."

But he only chuckles, seems more amused by her spite than riled up by it, and Regina doesn't know why she even bothers to be surprised by his response; the marchioness' personal guards had been hand-selected for their skills as brutes and borderline sociopaths, not as kind-hearted keepers of the peace. "Pleasure, eh?" He fingers his leather whip, looped around and strapped to his belt. Defiant eyes meet his direful ones, a silent challenge to deliver his worst; it's nothing she hasn't seen or survived before, and it definitely won't be the last.

But then her heart does a spectacular nosedive into her gut when he reaches for his belt buckle instead.

The man is laughing—to himself, or at her, she can't tell—as he tosses it aside and goes for the waistband of his trousers next. "Let's see if your famed cunt is as enticing as the tales of it claim."

"Over my dead body," she snarls—_That can be arranged once I'm finished with you_, _most certainly_, he responds with an air of excessive geniality—before rolling off her belly and onto her side, aiming the heel of her shoe right under his kneecap. He lets out an oomph of surprise, maybe even a slight sound of pain, but it's not enough to hold him back from having his way with her, and he advances forward, dogged and determined as ever.

Her fingers claw into the earth.

"Over yours, then," she amends furiously, as she lobs a handful of dirt into his face.

He yells, temporarily blinded as his hands scrabble to free the soil from his eyes, but then he's recovered remarkably fast, too fast for her to put enough distance between him and where she endeavors to stand on unsteady feet, his eyes red but his grin gleaming, white and lascivious once more.

"You feisty bitch," he chuckles, grabbing her by the arms and throwing her to the ground. She lands on her elbow and feels a pop. "Do you realize how stimulating it is to watch you fight back?"

"You're disgusting," she utters as pain blooms and brings unshed tears to her eyes. "But I'm not surprised. How else would you get a woman to sleep with you?"

He howls his laughter at that. "I like you," he admits, and her insides writhe in revulsion. "I can see why His Lord opted to keep you around for as long as he did."

Robin. Cheeks suddenly damp, she shudders from the deep ache in her chest at the mere thought of his name, and she longs, oh how she longs for him, because as much as she'd feared his leaving her, she'd never felt safer as she had when with him. (Wrapped in his embrace, with his fervent whispers of love hot in her ear, and the endless kisses he'd dropped onto her shoulders, the hollow of her neck, her jawline, her mouth.)

"But now that you have no one to claim you," the guard continues, crouching down to trail a finger under her dress and up her bare calf as she cradles her elbow, wincing, teeth gritting, "I'll happily do the honors."

Regina cries out when he makes a savage grab at her ankles; she kicks back against him with all her might and earns a sharp dig of nails into hips for her struggles as the man hauls her forward, dragging her skirts to bunch at her waist, then shoves her over onto her belly. Her injured elbow throbs as she feels his weight press against her bottom, and then his palm is cupping her, almost caressing, and she's struck with a profound hatred for this man.

"Let—go—of—me!" she growls, wrestles uselessly against his hold, but her anger is no match for his strength, and she has nowhere to turn, no way to move—her arms are all but pinned beneath her own body, every effort to free them rewarded by shooting stabs of agony. He grinds down onto her and her answering sobs are stifled by dirt as his hand shoves against the back of her head, knocking her teeth into the ground.

Regina trembles and quakes with fear and loathing. She still holds her virtue, but for how much longer? Robin had cherished it invaluably—had seen to it that they never went farther than deep, full kisses, his touch always hungry yet gentle over layers of lace and muslin. He'd wanted to wait until she was ready, until she was absolutely sure (and she was always sure of how much she loved him, but not of how truly, how freely she'd wanted him to know it). Had desired it to be perfect when it happened, their first time, and every time thereafter.

The tightening grasp on her hair pulls her out of her thoughts until she's gasping for air. "I want to hear your screams," the guard murmurs, nose to her ear, and she squirms, shakes her head, gnashes and bites when he swipes a grimy, soiled finger almost tenderly across one tear-stained cheek, and then he's wrenching her head forcefully backward again, with new, unexpected vigor. His ecstatic bellow drowns out her desperate yells, but then he cuts abruptly off, pulls and pulls until her hair slips from his grip, and she falls violently forward as his weight lifts inexplicably from her body. Legs freed, she kicks out, meets air.

What—

She hears a chorus of whinnies and the resounding crash of something heavy heaved against wood. There's a splintering noise, then a loud, pained grunt, followed by the unmistakable strikes of fist to flesh and bone. Regina pushes herself onto her good elbow, cranes her head, but all she can see is a stall door, or at least what remains of it; one part swings nearly off its hinges, others are scattered in wooden shards across the stable floor, edges jagged, some just within reach of her outstretched fingertips.

"Wait—no—"

It's the guard. Pleading.

"If you ever go near her again," another voice is thundering, full of perilous promise, "I will end you. _I will end you_."

A stammering response. Another forceful, bone-crunching sound. Then silence.

A figure emerges from the depths of the stall and pivots around to regard whatever lies within it. Regina's gaze focuses on a familiar green riding cloak, the nape of his neck, the back of his hair that she's spent countless hours running fingers through, as he had done hers.

Robin.

An anguished gasp of relief escapes her lips as she folds forward, spent.

His back is still turned to her, shoulders heaving with each weighted breath, as though grappling with the decision of whether or not the man has yet to see a full and proper beating. Regina tries to speak, tell him no, it's not worth killing a man over unless it's by her own hands, but she can't find the words.

And then he's by her side the next instant, gripping her face and lifting her off the ground with warm, calloused hands. His eyes are wild, at wit's end, as they meet hers, scan over the dirt smudged across her face, the cuts in her cheek, down to the shaking hand over her elbow and then back up to her eyes as tears fill them, unbidden, again.

"Are you all right?" he demands. "Where are you injured? Did he touch you? If he laid a single hand on you I swear to God I—"

"I'm fine," she finally manages, and she is, now that he's with her. But why is he? Her lungs protest at the effort as she asks, "What are you doing here?"

Robin stares at her like she's grown a second head, even as his thumbs trace the trickling path of tears down her face. "Marian," he explains at last, and it takes everything Regina has not to flinch, to pull away from him, because there's something about the tenderness in his voice as he says her name that stings more than the knowledge that there would be no Marian, were it not for her.

"Marian told me you'd been taken," he continues, and Regina _oh_s in quiet understanding. Of course she had; it would have been a heavy thing indeed to weigh her conscience down otherwise. "And I am eternally indebted to her for it. I—if _anything_ had happened to you—"

But it has, Regina wants to tell him, everything has happened, and if only she had the power to take it all back—if only she had a genie for a fairy godmother instead, she would exchange every last wish to reset time, to the moment she'd declared his love for her to be a dishonorable thing, and then—

_Yes, and then what?_ she admonishes herself. She's through being selfish, and he's made his choice that she has no choice now but to honor.

Still, old habits must die hard, she supposes, as he has yet to relinquish his hold on her face; breathing seems to be an ongoing struggle for him, deep and heavy as though he's just run kilometers at top speed, and there's a residual panic evident in the way his eyes can't keep still, unable to settle on one part of her for long before skirting elsewhere to ensure the rest of her remains intact. But then they fall on her lips, slightly parted as she takes in her own shallow breaths, and the sight of them seems to have a calming effect, transfixing him in place.

But it dizzies her, the way he's caressing her skin with his heated gaze and soft touch, so Regina removes his hands, disentangling her fingers as soon as he tries to weave them with his own. She pushes him gently away, says, "You should go," not for the first time, and why is she always telling him this? Why can't she just let him stay?

Right. Because he's engaged to the woman who'd sent him here to rescue her.

"Go," he echoes.

"Back to the ball," Regina clarifies, hopes her voice doesn't sound as tremulous as she feels. "To announce your engagement." If he hadn't already, that is. She realizes with a disquieting sensation in the pit of her stomach that she has no concept of how much time has passed—how long she'd lain there, how long she'd struggled, before he'd come in search for her—since he has become officially spoken for, since he has officially belonged to her no longer.

"Ah," is all Robin says, not in confirmation, but not in denial either. A definitive response one way or the other would have been vastly preferable to the vague one he's given instead, his expression blank and unreadable. But she supposes that's his business to withhold now, and she has no right or reason to pry. Grimacing at the numbness in her chest as much as the pain in her elbow, Regina holds the joint at a delicate angle as she pushes herself up to stand, brushing away the arm he shoots out to steady her as he rises too.

"Is it—" he starts, reaching for her elbow next, but she nudges his hand back.

"It's fine," she insists with a tight smile that he doesn't seem to find terribly reassuring. "It's not broken. It just…doesn't feel particularly great right now."

"Let me have a look," he says, frustration creeping into his tone, but Regina keeps him at bay with a simple, quelling stare.

"I'll have Mrs. Lucas bandage it up later," she replies firmly.

His jaw tightens as though about to argue, but then he seems to think better of it. "At the very least allow me to escort you back to your room." He interrupts before she can protest, "for my own peace of mind, if not yours." His voice lowers, a quiet entreaty. "Please, Regina."

She hears her traitorous voice speak against her will, "Fine," like a broken record.

"You're shivering," he observes then, and yes, she realizes dully, the wind has picked up pace, howling in the rafters, rattling the stable walls and sending bitter gusts of air in through the open doorway. But she feels cold all over, not just where her skin's been exposed to the chill.

"Here." Robin shrugs his cloak off, as he has so many times before on their twilight rides through the woods, and slings it over her shoulders, hands lingering long after they've fastened it in place with a bronze leaf clasp she's never noticed before. She fingers the foreign metal edges as she drops her gaze to avoid his, taking note that their feet are suddenly a lot closer together than they'd been a moment before.

"Thank you," she tells him, because she hadn't yet, and not just for the welcome comfort of his cloak, still warm in all the places his body had been, but "for saving me. Thank you." She chances a glance back up at him, takes in the tortured furrow of his brow, like he's still torn about the extent to which he can permissibly ensure her safety without overstepping the bounds she's set for him. He looks absolutely miserable. Pure instinct has her surging forward then, aiming for his cheek, but he moves just as she does and her grateful kiss lands on his stubbled jaw instead.

She feels him start at the touch of her lips, and she freezes as he turns toward her, nose skimming her cheek, a gentle graze, until his mouth is scant millimeters from hers. The air they share between them crackles, tense and intoxicating and going nowhere because she's forgotten how to breathe, can't recall when she had reached for his tunic, fisting his collar into a white-knuckled grip, and is she dragging him forward or is he leaning further in? Does it matter? Her mind is an incoherent mess at the sight of his eyes going deep sea blue the way they always do when he's thinking of kissing her, his chin tilting sideways, lids fluttering, lips parting, and—

No. This needs to stop. They can't do this.

She can't.

"We should go," she murmurs, words like a bucket of ice water dumped over both their heads, and the gap between them widens as reality seeps back in. Her palms push him away now instead of pulling him in, dropping down to clutch either side of his cloak, drawing them around her body in a phantom embrace, his scent lingering but his warmth fading, and it falls dismally short of the real thing.

"Right," Robin rasps after a moment, clearing his throat as he steps aside to let her pass. "As you wish."

Regina tugs his cloak tighter and leads the way.

She takes a faltering step at the sound of a snuffle and an agonized moan coming from the stall with the broken door. "What exactly did you do to him?" Regina asks, hesitant to look too closely as they walk by. The last thing she needs right now is someone else's blood on her hands, or Robin's hands on her, curbing her rage, holding her back. The greater the distance they can maintain from each other, the better. Easier. Less traumatizing to long for his touch, than to have it and have to drive it away.

"I gave him no more than he deserved," Robin responds shortly, and she'd never heard such iciness thread through his voice before. "Less, as a matter of fact. I'm afraid I will find nothing short of eternal torment to be satisfying enough punishment for what he's done." She levels him with a look of surprise, receives a grim yet rueful smile in return.

"I will personally see to it that neither he, nor anyone else, will ever violate your body or defile your honor ever again," he swears lowly. "You have my word."

And Marian has your hand, Regina thinks faintly as they proceed toward the castle, her heart as heavy as the growing quiet between them, her feet like lead with every step that takes them farther and farther away from the stables. Away from happier times, from a place she had once deemed sacred. A treasure trove of nothing but good memories—of saddled horses and stolen kisses, of rich, worn leather and the fresh scent of pinewood forest—until now.

Robin's watching her, almost puzzled, as though he can't quite determine what to make of her silence, what thoughts she might be keeping from him, and she chastises herself for always leaving him in darkness, for failing to be the light he deserves. For monopolizing so much of his evening, for needing to be rescued—for forcing him to make one last vow to her when he's already promised himself to another. She should make this easier on him, she thinks, on the both of them. Give him her blessing. No hard feelings. No minced words.

"I'm happy for you," she tells him—a loaded half-truth, but if she truly loves him, then someday she'll learn to mean it with all her heart, to coexist in peace with rather than in spite of the pain. "We could be friends," she suggests then, firmer than she feels.

"We could," he agrees, but she can't look his way, too frightened she'll find that he's no longer looking back.

"Good," she says.

"Wonderful," he says back.

Regina releases the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, but it comes out with a hitch at the end, and it's positively excruciating, the sensation of suffocating when her lungs are full of air. She prays he doesn't notice when she bites down on her lip to hide its tremble and keep the tears but a shine and glisten in her eye.

They're nearly halfway to the castle now, its turrets awash with moonlight and rising against an otherwise pitch-black backdrop of sky. Robin appears deep in contemplation as his pace slows, then stops. "Regina," he begins casually, eyes perusing the ground, "as friends, there is something that I've been rather curious to know."

She responds with a noncommittal "Hmm?", scratchy with tears that have yet to fall, as she tries to remind herself that this is for the best, that his quick recovery and pleasant, conversational tone don't devastate her beyond all belief.

"I've been wanting to discuss this with you for a…long time, actually," he carries on, as nonchalantly as if they were discussing the weather. "And it seems prudent to do so before we go any further."

"Okay?" she says, wonders what he could possibly be talking about.

He chews thoughtfully on his words before he voices them aloud. "It is very important that you be perfectly honest with me."

_And when am I not?_ she's about to retort, but she bites her tongue before she can catch herself in another lie.

"You're missing your engagement party," she reminds him instead.

"Yes, so it would seem," he concedes, but still he stands there, calm and unhurried.

Regina stares, baffled, thinking he must have lost his mind; she's nearly about to lose hers if he prolongs this walk any further, every inch forward a mile of agony, every step back just denying the inevitable. "We should be on our way then," she prompts him. "I'm sure your mother is waiting for you."

"We can keep her waiting a while longer," Robin shrugs. "There's no rush."

She huffs out her frustration. Has he still yet to learn by now that his mother is not a woman to be trifled with? Had the guard gotten a decent blow in before Robin had knocked him to the ground? What other explanation could there be for his utterly bizarre behavior now?

"You see," he continues, stepping closer, eyes lifting up at last to meet her glare, expertly deflecting it with a sudden, lopsided grin, "contrary to what I had intended for most people to believe, I'm not engaged _yet_."

Oh.

And "Oh" is all she can say.

"I do plan to be," he admits, and the look he's giving her now has her dazed and winded, "though perhaps not to the woman you're thinking of."

"No?" she asks, but she'd seen the way he'd looked at Marian before he'd ridden to town, had witnessed the engagement glow elevating the woman's beauty to a divine degree at the ball, and where is he going with this?

The world spins to a heady pause as he holds her bewildered gaze in his and sinks down to his knees.

"What—" she gasps, "Robin. What are you doing?"

"Regina," he says, all formal but for the fire he's lit beneath her skin, "I made the mistake of letting you walk away from me once. And I promised I'd never do it again."

His words steal into her soul. Gather together all the pieces of her heart she thought he'd left behind. Melt them back into something whole.

He takes her hand into both of his.

She can no longer speak. Can't even breathe.

"Regina…" And it stuns her into a delirious state, the raw hope in his eyes as he asks her next, "Will you marry me?"


End file.
